All tonic but no gin: Rachel Reeves and the OBR

Back in the autumn, when Rachel Reeves delivered her “real” Budget, this spring set-piece was meant to be just that: a seasonal update. A short stroll to the despatch box, a breezy declaration that things were ticking along nicely, a few numbers mumbled from the Office for Budget Responsibility to back that up, and then back to Number 11 for a well-earned gin, tonic and a Twix.

No such luck.

When Harold Macmillan was once asked what the greatest challenge facing a statesman was, he is supposed to have replied: “Events, dear boy, events.” The same can now be said of Rachel Reeves. And the events, in her telling, are numerous: Donald Trump, trade tariffs, and the very real threat from Putin—though not necessarily in that order.

What should have been a spring statement has turned into a full-fat fiscal event. A mini-budget in name only, where Reeves has taken a red pen—and in some places a sword—to the welfare state and the foreign aid budget. It’s beginning to feel like this Labour government doesn’t do economic planning, just political fiscal firefighting.

And that’s the issue. We’ve had two fiscal events in succession, but not a single economic vision, statement of intent, or even the faintest murmur of strategic direction. As a country, as UK PLC, we’re drifting. The markets don’t know the plan. Investors are squinting into the fog. The public is left to assume—hopefully, perhaps—that someone, somewhere, is in charge.

What we need is vision. Not a PowerPoint deck, not another tweak to the marginal tax rate, but a story—a narrative that suggests the adults are not only in the room but have read the manual. Instead, we get spreadsheets, reallocations, and a sort of technocratic shrug.

Now, I’ve never liked the Chancellor’s nickname, Rachel from Accounts. It’s a little too sexist, evoking that woman in finance who nags the sales lads for purchase orders, holds up the bonuses, and seems not to understand “the business”. The micro-manager. The worm-tongued early arriver who bags the seat next to the CEO.

But—painfully—it cuts close to the bone. Reeves does feel like the accountant in charge of the weeds, not the forest. She is, in every sense, a fiscal chancellor, not an economic visionary. And perhaps that’s the greatest indictment—not of her, but of the system she has inherited.

I’ve banged on for years now about this pet theory of mine: that from 2008 until 2022, we were living in the age of Quantitative Easing. The Bank of England printing money, hoovering up bonds, and pumping liquidity into the system to keep the lights on. It worked—for a while. Businesses kept borrowing, the wheels kept turning. But productivity flatlined, growth stalled, and wage inflation went on holiday. Meanwhile, asset prices soared and house prices shot into the stratosphere, leaving wage earners behind.

But now we’re in the age of Quantitative Tightening. Welcome to the era of stagnant house prices, sharp wage rises, higher unemployment, and the grinding, slow crawl of real growth. It’s an age that demands strategic thinking, hard prioritisation, and political courage. It’s also an opportunity—if Reeves could only lift her eyes from the ledger.

But she doesn’t. Because modern Chancellors are not visionaries. They are managers. Gordon Brown wrote the script: the Chancellor as Scrooge, handing out sweets to preferred departments, using the Treasury as a tool of government control rather than national direction. Number 11 is now the most political of bunkers, when it should be a vast weather vane for the national economy.

And so to the Office for Budget Responsibility. I’m not against it—far from it. It’s good that someone’s checking the Chancellor’s homework. But Reeves seems to think her job begins and ends with second-guessing the OBR. Predict the revenues, fiddle the taxes, shuffle the Whitehall priorities, and that’s that.

And that’s what we got yesterday. The OBR ”scores” X, so Reeves announces a reshuffle: less for this, more for that. A glum prayer for growth, a round of applause from the backbenches. Thank you, good night, and back to Number 11 for that gin, tonic and a Twix.

What we actually got from the statement was a grim little preview of the next few years: long-term growth trailing stubbornly behind inflation, meaning the average Brit will continue to pay more at the till while earning relatively less in real terms. GDP up just 1.0% next year, says the OBR, inflation still hovering around 3%. That gap isn’t academic—it’s baked into the price of milk, bread and rent. And as for the rest? Well, most of it had already been trailed, teased or quietly leaked. Some welfare tinkering here, a bit of aid budget pruning there, a rearranged spending priority dressed up as strategy. A sort of déjà vu Budget—except somehow more predictable.

But no Rachel, no!

This spring statement—mini-budget—fiscal event, whatever you want to call it, is everything and nothing. It’s everything for Whitehall—who gets what, who’s been cut, who’s in the good books. But it’s nothing for the country. No vision. No direction. No path. All politics. No economics.

So, yesterday we’ve had all tonic from Ms. Reeves but no gin and certainly no Twix.

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