Laura KuenSSBERGPENDERTATOR, Sunday with Laura KUENSSBERG •@bbclaurakBbc
Rachel Reeves is suddenly pressed.
She would hate the comparison, but the way she talks in recent weeks is more like that of a conservative chancellor.
She wishes to eliminate obstacles to trade and make it more difficult for environmental groups to slow down great development. It softens its projects aimed at making life more expensive to the rich non-dominant-and should approve new airport tracks and reduce social aid.
This does not really look like the reeves’s October budget, in which it has increased taxes and expenses in public services and reminded us, on the point, how much the economy was in difficulty and how the Conservatives – According to her – had left this legendary black hole of 22 billion pounds sterling.
So why this change of focus?
Reuters
In October, Reeves increased its expenses in public services
Treasury initiates say in private that almost as soon as she seated after the budget, she typed on the table with civil servants and pushed more ideas to stimulate the growth of the economy. After all, she and Sir Keir Starmer have always said that growth was their priority.
The plan of her big speech next Wednesday – in which she should reveal other changes to reduce planning rules and announce a new landing track in Heathrow in London – was developed at the time, and since , she has only undergone more and more pressure to respond to howls. business.
A source from the City said to me: “Labor did an excellent job by claiming to be favorable to businesses to (budget). No one looks like they are now. »»
Ouch!
Measures that measure government’s progress in its absolute priority-to make the United Kingdom more prosperous-are at best uneven and at worst dark. We have had oscillations on the markets and warnings concerning a “catastrophic loop” in progress.
As a director general of the FTSE told me: “There was nervousness this year, the feeling has definitively worsened, with a lack of positive rhythm. »»
There have also been “disputes” with the unions, said a union leader to me, with “intense conversations” on the best way to revive the economy and how to spend public money to support growth . “In the end, growth is anemic-they must invest massively,” they say.
And even if wages are increasing, any sounder will tell you that many voters feel uncomfortable and injured.
In issue 11, it is suggested that nervousness has been useful because it restored a “feeling of urgency and put the accent on the treasure”.
Sources say that this has enabled Reeves to make his arguments more strongly asserting his colleagues in favor of things like any other landing track in Heathrow.
Others also say that the new Reeves initiative reflects the fact that she and the rest of the cabinet are no longer apprentices and are installed in their roles.
The need to “move forward quickly is much clearer,” said a high -placed source. Another said that “market oscillations have put this frustration in the foreground – we talked about growth for a long time … I think it started to put rocket boosters”.
But didn’t the Starmer tribe tell you and me hundreds of times in the opposition that it was ready to get started on the wheel hats? The proofs of their first months in the government show that it was not entirely true and that the master plan which we had been told was ultimately not real.
A source from Whitehall said “that they have lost time because the government preparation team was not really preparing the government – they had the opportunity to come and show what they were made of and they spoiled it “, leading to a” winding approach “.
Today, they say, “it’s a correction”, a response to the cries of businesses and the arrival of “the orange man in the white house”.
Changing speed is not easy, said a high Labor MP. “The levers you activate are not just related to something: the dead hand of the treasure cannot simply control economic growth.”
Reuters
Before the general elections of July, Labor undertakes to strengthen conservative projects aimed at abolishing the tax status of non-Domins.
You would be forgiven if this sudden momentum of positivity and love for the business of cape and sword seems a little confusing.
In general, the government has imposed, spent and borrowed massively, even if it claims to want to focus on the growth of the economy.
They now say that they want to sweep the rules – but at the same time they strengthen the regulations for employers in order to give more rights to workers, for owners and even want to regulate football. And in terms of green energy, the projects to create a national energy company represent a huge state intervention.
To help revive growth, ministers would highlight changing planning or their project to seduce large AI companies, even if none other than Sir Paul McCartney notes that it is far from simple.
No government measure can be carefully organized in a single set of harmonizing ideas.
The situation as a whole is difficult. The country’s debts are huge and the taxes are huge. The growth is meager. Ministers are struggling to find ways to reduce their budgets.
Within the government, it is estimated that the best news about wage growth and a tolerable level of inflation have been underestimated. Tomorrow, in our studio, and in her big speech on Wednesday, Reeves will try to give you the impression that she overflows with optimism and that she is in a hurry to relaunch the economy, to create jobs, to fill the boxes Government taxes and in the end, voters could find a factor of well-being lost for a long time.
However, as optimistic as it is, a former Labor Minister wonders: “How long will it take for the changes to spread to the doors of my constituency, where people live in overcrowded apartments and n ‘ can’t afford to go to the supermarket? “
The pressure is strong. A union leader calls it a “moment of” crossing your fingers in the back “. Change takes time and the economy may need patience – but politics is not always ready to wait.
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