The Chancellor enjoys a splurge, and doesn’t seem to worry about how to pay for it. And no, I’m not talking about thefree clothes, theatre tickets, hampers and concert seats she accepted from friends and contacts.
Nor am I talking about she and her husband’s estimated £325,000 household incomethat she once claimed she could barely live on. Or the House of Commons credit card that was confiscated after she maxed it out.
My real concern is what she’s doing to the national credit card. Fresh analysis from the TaxPayers’ Alliance shows she has maxed that out too, racking up £186billion of extra debt in little more than a year.
That takes total UK debt from £2.53trillion in July 2024 to £2.71trillion today, a rise of £6,510 for every household.
When my Express colleague Carole Malone called Reeves “the most dangerous chancellor ever” for her reckless spending spree, she wasn’t joking. Malone said Reeves has set us on the road to financial armageddon. Today, we can see what that means.
Just one single year of Reeves has cost the nation an eye-watering £186billion. Imagine the damage she will do in five.
It is not as if anyone can point to obvious improvements. Hospitals remain under strain, the borders are breached and schools are short of teachers.
Yet the debt mountain grows higher by the second.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance has launched a debt clock that shows Reeves piling on another £4,956 every second and £428million every day.
Darwin Friend at the group said Reeves was fuelling a “chronic spending addiction” and taxpayers will foot the bill.
The only glimmer of good news was July’s borrowing figure, which fell to £1.1billion, the lowest for three years and well below economists’ forecasts of £2billion.
This was thanks to higher tax receipts, as self-assessment payments and National Insurance bills rose. Taxpayers are already being called in to cover her spree.
Yet even then, borrowing for the first four months of the financial year still came in at £60billion, that’s £6.7billion more than last year.
A single month’s relief is nowhere near enough to change the direction of travel. We remain on course for the financial Armageddon Malone warned about.
Sooner or later, debts must be paid. Does Reeves know that? The way she played fast and loose with her own credit card suggests she doesn’t.
The Office for National Statistics now puts public debt at 96.1% of GDP, a level last seen in the early 1960s.
Bond investors have noticed, and Britain is paying higher interest rates than European rivals because international markets do not trust us.
Reeves is not the only Chancellor to blame. Gordon Brown should have been paying down debt when times were good, but didn’t.
A decade of supposed Tory austerity failed to reverse the tide. Rishi Sunak opened the taps during the pandemic. And now, here we are, with debt nudging £3trillion.
Reeves can’t cut spending. Even a modest £5billion cut to benefits was enough to send Labour MPs into open revolt.
That leaves only one option: tax. She’s plotting to raid our pensions, savings, inheritances and even family homes in this autumn’s Budget.
Borrowing has become a binge, but ordinary taxpayers will be left to pick up the tab. The national credit card is groaning, but Reeves is still spending like a diva.