We live in an uncertain world. Or, as Rachel Reeves put it in the House of Commons this afternoon: “Mr speaker the world is changing. We can see it and we can feel it.”
It was a platitude that the chancellor returned to over and over during her 30 minute Spring Statement before Parliament. Faced with a whopping 50% cut in this year’s projected GDP growth rate by the OBR to just 1%, Reeves was desperate to show the British economy was being shaped by global pressures outside her control, rather than the fallout from her October Budget.
She has a point. Economic uncertainty has crescendoed over the last six months. The erection of tariffs in the US has sparked widespread disruption to supply chains and is likely to have a pronounced inflationary impact both here and across the pond. Forecasts for the American economy, and indeed every major economy, have been pared back. War in Ukraine rolls on, with faltering support from the US putting Europe under further pressure….
