Thursday, June 12, 2025

The chancellor just about got away with it. Her spending review survived today's scrutiny by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, although it warned that council tax will go up.

The IFS also said that Rachel Reeves would have to increase other taxes in the autumn Budget, but we knew that already.  

I would not describe the mood among Labour MPs as upbeat, but it is more positive than I expected it to be. 

This morning's GDP figure for April, down 0.3 per cent, is not good, but the monthly numbers jump about randomly. 

George Osborne, the former chancellor, described the spending review as "continuity Sunak" in his podcast with Ed Balls. "What Rachel Reeves is doing is continuing the increase in the size of the state and the increase in the tax burden that Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak started," he said. 

That might be a problem in the future, but for the moment the chancellor has managed to avoid making her problems worse. 

Written by John Rentoul 

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