Can spending in the north allay fears about price of Reeves's prudence?

Rachel Reeves was clearly keen to get back in the political driver's seat yesterday as she delivered a promise at a Rochdale bus factory for £15.6bn in transport investment.

- Heather Stewart

It was a down-payment on the £113bn in additional investment, over and above Tory plans, that she will lay out in next week's spending review.

It came in a speech that was focused on stimulating economies outside London and the south-east to tackle the longstanding issue of "growth created in too few places, and too few people feeling the benefits".

Reeves promised to publish an overhaul of the Treasury's "green book" next week - the rules that govern how public investment plans are judged.

This is expected to help tip the balance of the argument in future against endlessly shovelling more resources into the capital and the south.

She also revived her own notion of "securonomics" - government policy aimed at protecting households from economic shocks by shoring up national resilience - including, most recently, she said, intervening to take control of British Steel.

This felt like a shift of emphasis from Reeves's "further and faster" growth speech back in January.