Reeves is brilliant in theory. She moved effortlessly from Oxford University to the London School of Economics and the Bank of England, before becoming the UK’s first female chancellor.
That’s a brilliant CV. Unfortunately, it hasn’t survived her first brush with reality.
After just a few months in the job, her paper credentials have collapsed like a house of cards. The UK economy could soon follow suit.
Shortly after Reeves took charge in July, I counted eight things that were starting to go right for the UK economy as the cost-of-living crisis finally started to ease.
Now Reeves has sunk every one of them and it’s getting worse. Everything she touches falls to pieces in her hands.
Reeves and Starmer have unleashed havoc by talking down the UK economy and warning of the awful Budget heading our way on October 30.
They have destroyed consumer confidence, as people are too terrified to spend money in case they get clobbered, hitting high street spending.
Business confidence has dropped for the first time in a year as bosses anxiously await the Budget, according to the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
The UK is set to lose the greatest proportion of millionaires in the world as wealthy residents flee Labour’s tax crackdown. That means no more tax from them.
Last month investors pulled a staggering £1billion out of funds investing in UK shares.
Edward Glyn, head of global markets at Calastone, which produced the research, blamed Labour’s “pessimistic commentary about the UK economy” for killing off the UK stock market revival.
Today, saw yet more evidence of the damage Reeves has caused.
The UK is running a huge deficit and only plugs it by borrowing money from international investors, collectively known as the bond market.
The interest alone costs us around £100billion a year, almost as much as we spend on the state pension. Now the cost of borrowing that money has shot up. Again, thanks to Reeves.
The yield on the 10-year UK bonds, known as gilts, has jumped from 3.75% to 4.22% in less than a month, as global investors lose faith in our economy.
That means we’re paying even more money on our debts, and since gilt yields help determine mortgage rates, homeowners will pay more interest, too.
We now pay more than twice as much interest to borrow money as Germany.
Rising bond yields ultimately sunk former Tory PM Liz Truss, whose reckless and unfunded tax cuts spooked the bond market and sent mortgage rates soaring past 6%.
Now Reeves is trying a few tricks of her own. As I wrote yesterday, she’s expected to fiddle the books to allow her to spend an extra £57billion. All of which will be added to our £2.57trillion national debt.
Reeves is presiding over a non-stop rolling calamity. She hoped hiking capital gains tax would raise £15billion. Instead, it will cost us £2billion as taxpayers take evasive action.
Her plans to tax non-doms are in disarry as they flee to friendlier climes in Italy, Switzerland or Dubai.
Plans to synchronise pensions tax relief at 30% have been axed on the say-so of public sector unions.
And I haven’t even mentioned the Winter Fuel Payment debacle.
Nothing Reeves does works. With the Halloween Budget just three weeks away, she risks sending the UK back into the abyss. How will that look on her CV?
