By not Milton Freidman
In my earthly days, I championed markets over mandarins, but Rachel Reeves’ 2025 tenure as Chancellor has me spinning in my spectral grave. The UK economy, once a beacon of potential, stumbles under her stewardship, contracting 0.1% in May after April’s dip, despite her boasts of G7-beating growth earlier this year . My Monetary History taught that steady money supply growth fuels prosperity, yet Reeves seems enchanted by Keynesian fairy tales of spending and tax hikes.
Reeves’ “growth mission” is a mirage. She pours funds into projects like East West Rail and the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor, promising £78 billion by 2035. But as I argued in Capitalism and Freedom, government meddling distorts markets. Manufacturing fell 1.1% in January, and retail sales wilted, while Reeves clings to fiscal levers. My advice? Control the money supply, not infrastructure purse strings. Her policies risk stagflation—high inflation and stagnant growth—a ghost I warned about decades ago.
Taxes are Reeves’ Achilles’ heel. Facing a £30 billion shortfall after U-turns on welfare cuts, she’s boxed into a “ticking tax timebomb,” as critics note (). My negative income tax proposed simplicity, not piling levies on businesses already reeling from high interest rates and inflation. The CBI warns her national insurance hikes and minimum wage increases choke firms, curbing investment. “Rachel,” I’d say, “your fiscal rules are strangling the very growth you claim to champion!”
Debt is another blunder. With UK debt nearing 100% of GDP and bond yields at 4.8%, debt servicing costs £100 billion annually . My monetarist heart cringes—Reeves’ borrowing spree ignores my call for structural rules, like constitutional spending limits. Her spring statement looms, with the OBR slashing growth forecasts to 0.8% for 2025 . Deregulate, Rachel! Let markets, not bureaucrats, drive prosperity.
As I float back to the economic ether, I leave Reeves with a plea: read my Essays in Positive Economics. Your 2025 fumbles—over-spending, over-taxing, and under-delivering—prove markets, not ministers, hold the key to growth. Feniks Know Best readers, what say you? Is Reeves’ plan a comedy of errors or a tragedy in the making?