Top priority of chancellor's Budget is to secure her job

When Rachel Reeves walked into the Treasury as the new chancellor on 5 July 2024, she arrived with a “number one mission” of providing economic growth.

- DAVID MADDOX

Without it, she said, the UK could not pay for the improved public services that Labour wanted to deliver. But 18 bruising months later, those hopes for economic growth in a flatlining economy are in tatters, with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) now expected to downgrade already low growth projections until 2029.

As she prepares to stand up at 12.30pm today and deliver her second Budget, Ms Reeves has abandoned the language of economic growth. When she spoke to Labour MPs on Monday evening - in a bid to rally them ahead of her Budget - the word “growth” did not even pass her lips.

Instead, with Labour polling below 20 per cent, Nigel Farage’s Reform threatening to take power at the next election and turbulence on the Labour benches, Ms Reeves’s political priorities with the Budget appear to have changed.

Here are her top five aims:

Keep her job

Unbelievably, it has already come to this.

In recent days, Ms Reeves, the UK's first female chancellor, has accused her critics of “mansplaining” how to be chancellor – something which she says motivates her to show she is making the right decisions.