Rachel Reeves: trying to make numbers fit in is proving to be an impossible task

 

While Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Secretary for Defense John Healey, and other members of the British government can go around making all sorts of promises that they might not be able to deliver, it is up to Rachel Reeves to do all sorts of malabarismos to make numbers add up.

When she talked about pension reforms, she thought that would get more than 160 billion Pound to spend, but recent calculations show that the amount the Chancellor of the Exchequer will have available is less than 11 billion. 

In the meantime, John Healey, Secretary for Defense, has spoken publicly about building 6 munition factories, 12 nuclear submarines and so forth. More than 10 billion Pound are going to be paid to Mauritius for the transfer of the Chagos Islands. Billions of Pound are going to out to support military efforts in Ukraine, including training and sending of more than 100,000 drones (such is the number promised by Prime Minister Keir Starmer when he spoke about a tenfold increase. But there is a lot more. 

In the meantime, there is constant talk about budget cuts affecting Education, the NHS, the benefits system, the Civil Service, the BBC and so forth, on top of cuts for the elderly, the disabled and for those who look after the elderly and the disabled. But the list is a lot longer than that.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is sitting around the table on a daily basis, including Sundays, negotiating with interested parties that are not happy with salary increases and cuts being proposed. So being Chancellor of the Exchequer in these circumstances is not the best post in the British Cabinet. When the Home Office, the Secretary for Defense, the local and regional authorities and whoever else asks for money, she is the one on the spot. The question is how long Rachel Reeves will endure the present state of affairs, before she herself decides that it is an impossible task.