Rachel Reeves’s spring statement mattered as much for what she didn’t say as what she did. The chancellor mentioned neither the poor nor inequality. There was no defence of the welfare state, no transformative ambition, no urgency – even amid a climate crisis. Labour promised a break with the past, but she delivered continuity in technocratic clothing. She cast Labour as a competent manager, not a party of ideas – comfortable with markets constraining policy. Ms Reeves framed spending cuts as pragmatic, not ideological. In her vision, “responsibility” means restraint, not redistribution. Labour was once called a moral crusade. For her, it is neither.

She will dismay many in her party. Their disappointment will deepen if they read the documents accompanying her statement. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) warns unemployment is set to rise. Unprotected spending will be cut in real terms. It spells out that welfare cuts are driving a deficit reduction, and taxes are at record highs without matching social investment. More than 20 people will be poorer for every one person her reforms push into work. It’s hard not to conclude that Ms Reeves has repackaged austerity as “stability”, sacrificing the most vulnerable on the altar of prudence.

The fiscal rules themselves are a source of volatility, turning every OBR forecast into budget theatre. Economists peer through a glass, darkly – reliant on models that blur more than they clarify. The result is predictable drama. Staying within the rules hinges on optimistic assumptions about growth, interest rates and productivity. Even the OBR gives Ms Reeves just a 54% chance of hitting her target. That’s a coin toss.

Poor productivity, a modest rise in interest rates or a Trumpian trade shock could all derail her plans. These aren’t black swan events – they’re credible risks in a volatile world. Her rules leave no margin for any of them. Yet from 2026-27, they’ll permit an extra 0.5% of GDP – about £13bn – in day-to-day spending. Still, Ms Reeves will push 250,000 more people into poverty – nearly all from disabled households – to meet a rule that won’t even exist by the time it’s meant to be met.

One of Ms Reeves’s most misleading tactics is conflating capital investment with cuts to day-to-day spending – the kind that keeps services running, not building new ones – and so dressing up austerity as ambition. While making cuts, she touts £2.2bn more for defence and £2bn for affordable housing. The former won’t lift demand; the latter barely dents the damage from welfare cuts. She’s cutting the country’s social wage and calling it responsibility, while boosting the military and calling it investment. It’s sleight of hand that George Osborne would be proud of – from a Labour chancellor.

Labour campaigned as agents of change. In office, it has governed as bean-counters. The public has noticed – and is tuning out. Ipsos Mori polling shows 62% of voters say Britain is heading in the wrong direction; just 15% think it isn’t. Ms Reeves’s fiscal caution hasn’t built confidence, and won’t. Voters want visible, material improvements, especially on living costs and public services – where Labour has yet to deliver. It risks losing its voting coalition by chasing supposed credibility over change, managing a crisis it inherited, but refusing to challenge with the tools it controls. Ms Reeves may point to last year’s election win to blunt criticism. Yet if success is the only virtue and morality optional, then failure is not just defeat – it is disgrace.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.