They've been in power for nearly a year and have been promising all of that time, and indeed well before that, to kickstart what they've declared to be 'a decade of national renewal'.

Of course, things haven't played out exactly as they'd hoped. Liz Truss' government had crippled the economy during her fifteen minutes in power with a mini-budget which had succeeded only in imposing maximum damage on the confidence of the financial markets and ordinary consumers and citizens in the fiscal integrity of the UK, resulting in rising interest rates and inflationary pressures which, alongside hikes in energy prices prompted by the conflict in Eastern Europe, came together into a perfect storm that got called a 'cost-of-living crisis'… which – added to the legacy of Covid – led to a £22 billion black hole in Treasury funds.

Sluggish economic conditions, exacerbated by the long-term impacts of Britain's departure from the European Union, have been made even worse by Donald Trump's global tariff war.

Before they were elected, Labour had said they'd find the cash to increase spending on public services through the revenue dividends of economic growth. That money simply hasn't materialized.

Meanwhile, the orange incumbent of the White House has also, with his threats to dismantle NATO, prompted such anxieties as to the ongoing security of Western Europe that the new government felt it had no choice but to hugely increase investment in the armed forces. 

Unfortunately, in order to do this (with the national coffers virtually empty), it decided to take much of this extra cash from its international aid budgets, even as the American president was cutting his own country's foreign aid, for his own ideological purposes. This may, of course, prove to be ultimately self-defeating: if you stop making friends across the world and allow the most deprived nations to sink further into poverty, you may well find yourself with a lot more enemies and end up having to spend even more money on guns and bombs.

Many of Labour's dreams of social justice and environmental sustainability had been shattered by economic and political realities long before Sir Keir Starmer entered Downing Street. And many more have been challenged by the increasingly harsh conditions they've faced since.

But, on June 11, the British Chancellor Rachel Reeves stood up in parliament and outlined the plan she had spent the previous eleven months putting together, a Spending Review that set out the nation's core budgetary priorities for the next four years. 

She would raise desperately needed funds by selling off government-owned land (as much of the Civil Service departs its expensive London offices to bring prosperity to the provinces) and cutting office costs and consultancies. (And yes, it seems they brought in consultants to advise on cutting those consultancies.)

Then, in a clear sop to the demands of those who voted for Reform UK, she said that the expense of housing asylum-seekers in costly hotels would be reduced to zero by 2029.

Related News

News from Nowhere: Swansong

News from Nowhere: The French Connection

But it was also clear that other budgets would have to be cut, though she neglected to go into a great deal of detail as to where those savings would be made as she addressed her fellow MPs.

It swiftly emerged afterward that the detail omitted from the Chancellor's speech included big reductions to Transport, Foreign Office and Home Office spending – while those hoping for something to help the hard-hit higher education sector (outside boosts to targeted research and development funding) were left disappointed and (as one sector leader said) depressed.

She promised to make working people better off, to rebuild schools and hospitals, and to invest in the economy. She repeatedly pledged to ensure that her program of renewal is felt across the nation in ordinary people's everyday lives – and to invest in security, health, and the economy.

She offered an £11 billion boost in defence spending, which also specifically promised the creation of new jobs in Scotland, where Labour hopes to make electoral gains from the Scottish Nationalist Party, especially in the wake of her party's surprise win in a recent by-election. 

She also committed cash to secure the country's energy security and to underpin the government's net zero targets through the creation of Great British Energy – a new organisation to be headquartered in Scotland, where green energy projects would help to ameliorate the economic impacts of plans to wind up fossil fuel production in the North Sea.

She offered £2 billion to increase neighbourhood policing, following a public intervention from police chiefs and more private (but reportedly protracted) negotiations with the Home Secretary. 

She promised that the provision of free school meals would be extended to more than half a million more children, in a bid to bring large numbers of youngsters out of poverty.

She promised to restore to the majority of pensioners the winter fuel payments, which her own Labour administration had controversially taken from them very shortly after it had come to power.

She also announced what she called an unprecedented three per cent year-on-year real-terms increase in health spending, which experts later noted appeared to be rather less than the average annual rises for the National Health Service achieved by the previous Labour government.

Yet, some of her other aspirations seemed surreally specific – including ambitions to fight the epidemics of graffiti and fly-tipping that blight the beauties of our provincial towns.

(She named a lot of such towns in her speech, doubtless keen to demonstrate the benefits of her plans to prospective voters.)

Considering how Labour has spent the last year talking down the economic and fiscal legacies they inherited from the Conservatives, it was all surprisingly upbeat. But, given that the plan has little wriggle room to deal with unexpected exigencies, everyone's now holding their breath to see whether Ms. Reeves' budget this autumn will be forced to raise taxes to meet her spending commitments pledged in the reassuring warmth of an early summer's day.