Under-fire Rachel Reeves today insisted Britain would be in a worst position if she had not hiked taxes.
The Chancellor sounded defiance in her first broadcast interview since the UK suffered an extraordinary battering from markets – with the Pound falling and borrowing costs spiking.
Ms Reeves dismissed demands for her resignation, saying she will not ‘let it get me down’ and is ‘here for the long haul’.
Volatility has eased somewhat this week after inflation came in below expectations, but GDP and retail sales figures have confirmed the struggles facing the economy.
High street giant Next warned this morning that Labour hiking the minimum wage and employers’ national insurance costs will make it harder for young people to get into the jobs market.
Speaking to the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast, Ms Reeves brushed off comparisons with short-lived Tory PM Liz Truss, whose mini-budget spooked the financial markets in 2022.
Under-fire Rachel Reeves today insisted Britain would be in a worst position if she had not hiked taxes
The Chancellor sounded defiance in her first broadcast interview since the UK suffered an extraordinary battering from markets – with the Pound falling and borrowing costs spiking (pictured, interest rates on 10-year gilts)
‘Every decision I make has consequences, but so does the counterfactual,’ Ms Reeves said.
‘If I had made the decision not to address those very real pressures, then this is the consequence: borrowing costs would have gone through the roof.
‘Borrowing costs not just for Government but for families and businesses, like it did when Liz Truss was prime minister.’
Pressed on whether she could suffer a similar fate to Ms Truss, who left office after just 49 days, Ms Reeves said: ‘I’m here for the long haul.’
Ms Reeves insisted she had not taken criticism of her decisions personally.
She added: ‘Some people don’t want me to succeed. Some people don’t want this Government to succeed. That’s fair enough. That’s the prerogative, but I’m not going to let them get me down.
‘I’m not going to let them stop me from doing what this Government has got a mandate to do, and that is to grow the economy, to make working people better off.’
The volume bought was down by 0.3 per cent in December, far worse than the 0.4 per cent increase analysts had pencilled in
