The promise of a new nuclear reactor which can power six million homes will do nothing to stop the chill spreading through the economy as unemployment climbs. Rachel Reeves and her Treasury colleagues are barrelling towards the summer recess when MPs will quit London for their constituencies and sunnier climes. But the fall in the number of available jobs and the uptick in unemployment will make many people fear winter is coming.
A raft of business organisations have sounded the alarm that the hike in employers’ National Insurance Contributions – coupled with the increase in the minimum wage and the prospect of Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s overhaul of workers rights – has put companies off hiring. The Chancellor cannot pretend she was not warned. For all her pro-growth rhetoric, people who run businesses have spend months describing in graphic detail the dangers Britain now faces as a result of her choices.
The message was clear from the Budget onwards that a tax raid on employers will cost jobs. Workers can sense the mounting anxiety in a business; if families cut back on spending then even more shops will vanish from the high street and a return to true growth becomes a yet more distant prospect.
YouGov’s polling showing just 12% of Britons think Ms Reeves is doing a good job as Chancellor is scathing. Only 28% of Labour voters give her the thumbs-up.
The Government faces a crisis when it comes to perceptions of trustworthiness, competence and values. The axing of universal entitlement to winter fuel payments in the weeks after the election seemed devious when no hint was dropped during the campaign this was an option.
It has been forced to u-turn in the face of anger but voters will not forget how the vast majority of elderly Britons were stripped of cash as last winter loomed. If the fear of unemployment haunts Britain again then citizens will pin their anger on Labour.
Ms Reeves will arrive in the Commons today for the spending review, briefed by bright spin doctors on how to portray her decisions as prudent and fair. But if Britons have decided the Government lacks both the brains and the values to make the right calls on the economy then they will look for alternative occupants of Downing Street.