There's an old American idiom, 'bet the farm', that Rupert Murdoch, for one, is familiar with. It means staking everything on a bet, a hunch, an enterprise. It paid off for Murdoch when he gambled his print empire on launching Sky.
Who knows whether Rachel Reeves was familiar with it when she launched her much-touted Spending Review, but the general view among the media and economists is that she's effectively gambled not just her own survival as chancellor, but that of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Labour's re-election hopes and the economic prospects of the whole of the UK.
It's a gamble based on the long-term over the short-term and the hope of selling the case for patience to a jaded public in the age of impatience. A challenge made all the more daunting by the current Labour government's lacklustre record in inspirational storytelling compared to that of the Blair, Brown, Mandelson, Campbell era. OK, that Labour government came to power in far healthier economic times, without the wild west of cyberspace to contend with and without the opportunistic populism revolution represented by Nigel Farage's Reform and its all things to all men fantasy promises.
Delusional drivel?
Whether Reeves and Starmer were fully prepared for and had factored in the media mauling it received, who knows for certain? But the Daily Mail front page (June 12th) left them in no doubt. With a '£4TRILLION SPENDING REVIEW' strapline above the splash headline, 'A reckless splurge we (and our children) will be paying off for years'. The front page also carrying a prominent blub for Andrew Neil's inside column headlined: 'As delusional drivel, this was in a class of its own'.
Mocking the chancellor and the PM's claim to be 'fixing the foundations of the economy' and 'investing in Britain's renewal' he tossed in the barbed grenade, 'unless you're talking about the foundations of the graveyard'.
The Mail's predictably hostile saturation coverage was amplified by a leader headlined, 'Reeves rash gamble will ruin the nation' and concluding with, 'Labour has retreated to a failed 'spend now, tax later' ideology which permits only state expansion. That way lies disaster'. Alongside the leader, it carried an op-ed by resident polemicist Stephen Glover, headlined: 'This was the final proof the chancellor has no inkling of the mess this country is in'. The opening paragraphs set the doom-laden tone: 'No one will remember Rachel Reeves's speech yesterday or her fantasy spending review for long, possibly including Rachel Reeves herself. This is because it will soon be overtaken by events. The chancellor's plans will have to be adjusted to take account of reality. Much of what she promised will never come to pass, but something she didn't tell us about most certainly will. More tax rises'.
Uncomfortably for both Reeves and her boss, the prime minister, the spectre of substantial tax rises was a common theme among broadcasters, economists and even normally sympathetic papers. Significantly, perhaps, my old Labour loyalist ship the Mirror relegated Reeves' spending review to a small page 1 box, marked, 'REEVES: £300bn for a better Britain' while preferring to splash on legal moves to, 'PAY BACK OUR £122M FOR 'FAULTY' PPE'... with a larger image of scandal-hit Tory peer 'Baroness Bra', Michelle Mone.
For its part, the Guardian ran the front-page headline, 'Reeves gambles on 'renewing Britain' to win trust of voters'. But, inside, the paper's analysis articles carried headlines like, 'Does Labour's spending review signal a return to austerity', 'Reeves's spending review was big on the long-term but light on the everyday' and 'Labour bets on investment, but will Britons see change before the next election?'
By a gnat's whisker...
Uncomfortably for the chancellor, the pro-Labour Guardian also carried warnings by the left-leaning think tank, the Resolution Foundation, that Britain is on track to become a 'National Health State' by the end of the decade where half of all public spending has to be allocated to the NHS and social care to the detriment of other public services.
It also carried this from the Institute for Fiscal Studies' highly respected director, Paul Johnson, that only a 'dramatic turnaround' in the economy could avoid fresh tax hikes in the Autumn Budget. "With spending plans set, and 'ironclad' fiscal rules being met by a gnat's whisker, any move in the right direction will almost certainly spark more tax rises" was Johnson's colourful way of putting it. Soon off to run an Oxford University college, Johnson went further by suggesting in both the Guardian and Telegraph that the Treasury could be 'making up figures' the chancellor relied on.
The Times front page lead settled for a relatively measured headline, 'Chancellor turns on the tax and spend taps'. But the main leader inside headlined, 'Spending Strains' gloomily contended, 'After almost a year in gestation, Rachel Reeves has now made clear choices about the government's priorities. But the chancellor's spending plans lack fiscal credibility'. The final paragraph, prophetic or not, reading: 'Given its scope, the spending review may prove to be the most consequential thing Ms Reeves has done. If it does not pay off with improved growth, it may prove to be her last'.
Elsewhere, the normally simpaticio 'i' front page headline offered 'Tax rises now inevitable to pay for Reeves' £2trn spending', the Express splashed with capped up, 'BRACE FOR TAX PAIN TO PAY FOR RACHEL'S 'FANTASY' SPENDING'. Less hostile was The Financial Times which praised her for directing funding at affordable housing and energy security, while also calling for 'broader reform' of Britain's whole tax system.
The Telegraph rather echoed the 'Warfare vs Welfare' theme of this column of last week, by questioning how the chancellor could possibly hope to balance her welfare commitments with NATO and President Trump's demands for increased defence budgets well above the figure built into the Spending Review.
Reeves the bingo hall caller?
The Economist chipped in by describing the Commons as Rachel Reeves delivered her set piece speech as, "feeling like a bingo hall, or perhaps an auction speech as she reeled off dizzying list of wildly varying numbers and time horizons covering programme after programme." Not a committed enemy of Labou by any means, the Economist opined under the headline, 'Rachel Reeves big-government rhetoric is a worrying sign for Britain: "The government is so cash-strapped that most of its departments suffered in order to help the rickety National Health Service. To gloss over this, Ms Reeves delivered a tub-thumping speech about the virtues of big government."
Even before Reeves delivered her (arguably) make-or-break Commons speech on Wednesday, the Mail, ever eager for attack dog duty, had lambasted her on its front page for REFUSING to apologise to pensioners over her winter fuel U-turn and branding her heavily-leaked Spending Review 'DELUDED' in a huge one-word Splash headline.
The chancellor's subsequent sticky studio rounds tour wasn't helped by the release of figures showing an inconvenient drop in employment figures and a significantly lower than forecast rise in GDP.
Interestingly, Mail on Sunday columnist Dan Hodges, son of the famous actress and Labour MP Glenda Jackson and himself for many years a Labour party member, previewed the Spending Review by featuring a trio of pictures of the chancellor looking glum over a headline: 'The looks that proved hapless Reeves is doomed — and why the PM must now put her out of her misery'.
Despite rumours within Labour that Starmer was considering shifting Reeves in a summer reshuffle that now looks nigh on impossible after the Spending Review without seriously, potentially fatally, damaging the prime minister himself. After her Commons speech, the leadership called a meeting of its backbenchers with the message, 'Get Out and Sell the Spending Review'.
Disability revolt looms
Perhaps not the easiest one to sell, given the hierarchy's own poor messaging talents, and with Red Wall MPs, spooked by Reform's surge, still spoiling for a fight, or even open revolt, over issues like the disability benefit cuts and the 2-child benefit cap. Both left and right wing titles agree more than 100 Labour MPs could potentially rebel over the disability cuts issue with government whips working overtime to dissuade them.
Spooked, however, is an operative word, considering Farage's appointment of Dr David Bull, best known for presenting the bizarre reality TV show 'Most Haunted Live', as the party's new chair. Rather reinforcing Guardian columnist Marina Hyde's acerbic midweek assertion that 'nuttiness' appears not to be a barrier to soaring poll ratings and the even spookier likelihood of Farage — Trump fanboy and Putin apologist — becoming prime minister.
By the end of the week both Keir Starmer and his under pressure chancellor could almost be forgiven for feeling relieved that the Air India disaster, and the miracle survival of a lone Brit passenger, followed by Israel's blitz against Iran, temporarily dominated the front pages, many inside news pages and the broadcast news bulletins rather than the battleground fallout from the spending review.
Even so, The Times and Mail still made the luckless Reeves their main leader column subjects on Friday June 13th. The former characterising the chancellor's insistence no new tax rises would be needed as "somewhat economical with the truth". The Times political sketch writer Tom Peck quipped in with a mocking column headlined, 'Einstein is no match for Reeves's maths'. The Mail's leader arguing the chancellor's credibility was 'crushed' and branding her 'massive splurge a naked attempt to bribe voters in order to head off Reform UK'.
Inevitably, by the weekend, the Israel-Iran conflict — 'ALL-OUT WAR' was the Mail's Saturday splash headline — had largely swamped the news agenda. But some anti-Labour titles and commentators, already on the warpath over the Spending Review, contrived to link geopolitical crisis with Starmer's perceived domestic weakness. It came via weaponising the prime minister's call for 'restraint, de-escalation and diplomacy' by condemning him for not declaring all-out support for Israel's action.
Although the Israel-Iran war dominated most UK front pages on Monday, the Mail and Express opportunistically opted for Starmer's humiliating grooming gang statutory inquiry U-turn. Not exactly a good omen for the PM's Trump influencer prospects at the critical 3-day G7 summit in Alberta this week.
Hyperbolic Boris
The Mail's Saturday edition found space for a page lead headlined: 'Labour leader kept in the dark because of hostility to Israel'. While opposite it was Boris Johnson in full hyperbolic missile launch mode with his column headlined: 'Starmer's leading the most abject and craven British government of the past 100 years. They are so weak they make Neville Chamberlain look positively robust'. If nothing else, evidence that Johnson still doesn't regard himself as yesterday's man but more the Conservatives' best antidote to Farage and Starmer.
At least the PM could take a degree of comfort from Sunday paper headlines reporting his decision to send extra RAF planes and personnel to Cyprus in readiness for any Iranian targeting of British interests. But, even amid the Middle East crisis coverage, some other Sunday front page headlines targeted his overdue U-turn over a national public inquiry into the grooming gang sex scandal. As I pointed out in previous columns, his own-goal failure to do so before figured prominently in my canvassing of why so many Labour voters turned to Reform in the May Day election bloodbath.
Even for a Labour-sympathetic commentator like me, I had to wince and groan at Rachel Reeves robotic performance doing the Sunday political show studio round, both defending her spending review and the grooming gang U-turn. On the latter, you can cue Elon Musk joining Farage and a beleaguered Kemi Badenoch in making maximum hay out of an embarrassing Starmer gift horse.
Back to Saturday's Daily Mail where a speculative column by its senior political commentator (and GB News presenter) Andrew Pierce claimed Angela Rayner is already at the centre of a plot to put her in No10 to replace Starmer in the wake of the Spending Review backlash.
A different tack came in his Saturday Times column from Fraser Nelson, former editor of Tory bible The Spectator, who suggested the government's survival prospects now depend on Wes Streeting... with the headline: 'For Labour and the NHS, it's Wes or bust'.
Nelson's column contended: "In a government devoid of big ideas, the health secretary's reform plan is the one chance of living up to its election slogan." If Streeting fails, he suggested, electorally it will be 'Cue Farage'.
Significantly, 'Can Wes Streeting cure the NHS?' was also the headline theme of Andrew Rawnsley's column in the Labour-supporting Observer. Rawnsley, associate editor politics of the now Tortoise Media-owned title, acknowledged: "Reforming the NHS will be a hydra-headed challenge even for a highly energetic health secretary... fixing the NHS won't guarantee Labour a second term in power; failing to do so will greatly increase the chances that it loses the next election. The health secretary's ambitions to move upwards towards No10 depend on him delivering. So do his party's electoral fortunes."
The Observer also carried a thoughtful take on the Spending Review by namesake Rachel Sylvester (a recent recruit from her longtime berth as a Times columnist) headlined, 'Reeves pressed to invest in people as well as projects — and get more bang for her buck'.
An intriguing twist came from the Sunday Times health editor Shaun Lintern who reported that, although the NHS was far and away the 'big winner' in the Spending Review, its leaders were worried by the prospect it could ramp up public 'impatience' with the service as they figure out how to most effectively and visibly deploy the extra funding.
I'll leave the last word in my own column to a very senior and normally ultra-loyal Labour MP contact who tells me: "The bad news is that if Keir insists on the high-risk personal gamble of sticking with Rachel Reeves, I'm resigned to it almost certainly costing us the next election. Unless Farage and co do us a big favour by fully blowing up their own credibility. The potentially better news is that they're perfectly capable of doing just that."
