Reeves has few options to make her numbers add up

For Rachel Reeves and Labour, it doesn't just rain.

- JAMES MOORE

It pours and pours and pours. The latest torrent came courtesy of February’s borrowing figures which, at 10.7bn, are the fourth highest since records began, 0.1bn higher than the corresponding month in 2024 and more than £4bn higher than the Reuters poll of economists had expected (£6.6bn).

These monthly figures are always highly volatile and forecasting them is a mug’s game. One also has to wonder just how reliable the information from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is these days (we’ll get to that).

But none of this changes the fact that the numbers look worse than the Welsh rugby team’s dismal wooden spoon winning Six Nations campaign. And no, I’m not exaggerating.

The raincloud tipping buckets onto No 11 is so dark and angry that it is probably visible from Cardiff. It is genuinely hard to imagine a worse result ahead of the next week’s spring statement, which is looking more and more like it will turn into an emergency Budget. Is it just me or does last year’s general election look like a good one to have lost?