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Business|Britain’s Most Unpopular Chancellor in Decades Faces Another Big Test
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/business/rachel-reeves-uk-budget.html
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Rachel Reeves, who has had a bruising tenure as the country’s top economic official, is set to announce tax and spending measures that risk stoking more discontent.
Nov. 25, 2025, 12:00 a.m. ET
After more than a year in what she described as her “dream job,” Rachel Reeves, Britain’s top economic official, is about to face a nightmarish test. On Wednesday, she will deliver her second annual budget, setting out the government’s priorities to disgruntled voters, rebellious members of her own political party and anxious bond investors.
Pleasing any of these groups, much less all of them, will be difficult. The Labour Party of Ms. Reeves and Prime Minister Keir Starmer swept to power with a large majority in July last year, but its time in government has been filled with policy reversals, accusations of a lack of strategy and a recent descent into paranoia and infighting.
For her second straight budget, Ms. Reeves, the chancellor of the Exchequer, is expected to raise taxes and cut spending. She will also try to soften the blow with measures to ease the high cost of living for many Britons. Striking this balance is fraught with risk for her and Mr. Starmer, who are both deeply unpopular.
An economic growth spurt at the beginning of the year, fueled by government spending, has petered out. The British economy grew just 0.1 percent last quarter. A report cutting the forecast for productivity growth, expected to accompany the budget, also suggests that the economy could remain sluggish.
“The biggest obstacle the Labour government has is, first and foremost, growth,” said Ed Al-Hussainy, an interest rate strategist at Columbia Threadneedle, an asset manager. “They’ve had the bad luck of not being in a high-growth environment, and whatever policy levers that they’ve pulled over the last 12 months haven’t worked.”
That has focused attention on the leaders behind those policies, he added, and “that’s never good.”
In a recent poll, Ms. Reeves recorded the lowest popularity rating of any chancellor since at least the late 1970s, when the survey began. She has been blamed for many of the country’s struggles, including trends that gained momentum before she took office, like the rising cost of living and high interest rates. When she announces the budget in Parliament, an often raucous event that marks one of the biggest days in Britain’s political calendar, she will embody the country’s economic challenges.
