{"id":469603,"date":"2026-03-11T12:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T12:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/469603\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T12:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T12:34:10","slug":"rachel-reeves-hit-with-new-hammer-blow-now-shes-out-of-excuses-personal-finance-finance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/469603\/","title":{"rendered":"Rachel Reeves hit with new hammer blow – now she’s out of excuses | Personal Finance | Finance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perhaps I\u2019m wrong. Perhaps the ayatollahs will buckle under US president Donald Trump\u2019s onslaught. That would be a fantastic result for the Iranian people, for Trump, the West and the UK economy. It would suit Rachel Reeves nicely too. Right now the outcome hangs in the balance. The regime is digging in and might even be luring the US into a military trap<\/a>. The longer the fighting drags on, the more it\u2019s going to cost us.<\/p>\n

Yesterday the oil price slipped below $100 a barrel after Trump declared the war is \u201cnearly over\u201d<\/a>. I\u2019m not convinced. This war could unleash chaos<\/a>, and much of it will revolve around oil. That\u2019s bad news for the UK economy and even worse news for Reeves. She was banking on inflation dropping to 2% by the spring. That would have let the Bank of England to cut interest rates<\/a> and relieve pressure on households and businesses. It won\u2019t happen if crude shoots past $150 or even $200, as some analysts predict.<\/p>\n

That could send inflation rocketing towards 5%, and hammer a UK economy that\u2019s already dead on its feet<\/a>. It could tip Britain into recession, push unemployment higher, drive up borrowing costs and blow a hole clean through Reeves\u2019s fiscal plans.<\/p>\n

As a fair-minded commentator, I\u2019ll note that Reeves didn\u2019t start this war. She didn\u2019t order strikes on Iran or provoke the retaliation that threatens the crucial Strait of Hormuz oil supply route. None of that is down to her. But she can\u2019t use it as an excuse either.<\/p>\n

And she will. There\u2019s no doubt about that. If the war drags on, Britons will feel the pain. Reeves will have to make some tough decisions. and she\u2019ll pin every single one on events in the Middle East. But that won\u2019t wash.<\/p>\n

Reeves crippled our economy long before the US bombers flew<\/a>. Her tax raids, especially on business, have sapped confidence and killed growth.<\/p>\n

The economy expanded just 0.1% in the third quarter of 2025 and at the same deathly pace in the final three months of the year. Was that down to war in Iran? No, because there wasn’t one.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s already burned through her fiscal headroom twice. That wasn\u2019t down to Trump or the ayatollahs either. It followed two chaotic Budgets and her decision to carpet bomb Brits with \u00a370billion of tax hikes, when she\u2019d only signalled two precision strikes totalling \u00a38.5billion.<\/p>\n

Her bungling has left Britain on a knife edge. We had no financial cushion when the next crisis arrived. And now it has. Reeves has another problem.<\/p>\n

Every time the chancellor stands up in Parliament she blames everything that\u2019s gone wrong on the Conservatives. Fair enough. Tory chancellors also raised taxes and pushed debt higher. But Reeves conveniently skips one crucial fact. The pandemic.<\/p>\n

Covid<\/a> support programmes such as furlough and emergency business loans cost roughly \u00a3375billion, or \u00a35,565 per person. Labour repeatedly pushed the Tories<\/a> to spend even more, and go harder on lockdowns.<\/p>\n

The Conservatives didn\u2019t create the virus, just as Reeves didn\u2019t start the war. They still had to deal with the consequences.<\/p>\n

Reeves has never suggested that Covid excuses Tory failures. In return, she can\u2019t claim that war in the Middle East somehow absolves her. It doesn\u2019t. All it’s done is expose them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perhaps I\u2019m wrong. Perhaps the ayatollahs will buckle under US president Donald Trump\u2019s onslaught. That would be a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,1431,168048,632,163868,1445,56,1893,54,55],"class_list":["post-469603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-inflation","tag-inflation-and-fiscal-policy","tag-middle-east","tag-middle-east-conflict","tag-rachel-reeves","tag-uk","tag-uk-economy","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}