Last Saturday Keir Starmer and his government had been in office for 100 difficult days. Far-right riots, rows between top officials in No 10, a furore over freebies in an administration claiming to be in the service of the nation. Starmer now refers to them as "choppy days" he insists will not push him off course.
For cabinet ministers in big spending departments, another frustration has mounted since they celebrated winning a landslide on 4 July: waiting for the budget. New governments - Labour's in 1997, and the Tory/Lib Dem coalition in 2010 - have tended to hold their first budgets in double-quick time to set direction and establish a clear sense of purpose.
The first budget by this Labour government will not happen until almost four months after it came to power, on 30 October. Under the fiscal transparency system Labour decided to bring in to restore confidence after Liz Truss, the Office for Budget Responsibility has had to be given time to look over the figures, do forecasts and check everything stacks up. All the while ambitious members of the cabinet have been tearing their hair out.
Reeves has, they say, locked herself away in the Treasury, agonising over what to do. "We can't get anywhere near her," one cabinet colleague said. "We can't get past Darren," they said, referring to Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the Treasury, who is Reeves's number two and effective gatekeeper.
This story is from the October 18, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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This story is from the October 18, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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