Financially incontinent, rather than just incompetent
People have called Rachel Reeves 'financially incontinent' because she can't stop spending money - other people’s money.
She’s engaged in massive capital spending. In the 2025 Spending Review, Reeves committed an additional £113 billion in capital spending. This includes £15 billion for transport outside London and £14.2 billion for the Sizewell C nuclear power plant, part of an £86 billion fund for science and technology.
Her budget breakdown shows that infrastructure, green initiatives, health, and defence received large cash injections, such as £29 billion to the NHS, 2.6% of GDP going to defence by 2027, and £13 billion for home insulation.
She’s had to do hefty borrowing to finance her spending. Critics warned the £113 billion in capital spending was underpinned by correspondingly massive borrowing (around £140 billion), with looming concerns about long-term debt sustainability.
She’s had to make tax hikes across the board. In her October 2024 Budget Reeves delivered the largest tax rise since 1993, raising £40 billion. Key measures included: increased employer National Insurance, VAT on private school fees, inheritance tax adjustments, and bus fare hikes.
These measures lifted the UK tax burden to its highest-ever recorded level, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility. In July 2024, Reeves announced a spending audit unveiling a £21.9 billion “black hole.”
Reeves emphasized “choices” in the Spending Review, but critics argue her fiscal narrative lacked credibility, especially the £113 billion of capital spending, supported by £140 billion in borrowing.
The scale and rapid expansion of spending has invited skepticism, especially without a clear path to sustainable funding. The label “Rachel from accounts,” suggesting total budgetary control, now seems ironic to critics amid the fiscal looseness. Comparisons to fiscal recklessness have been made, with calls for tighter oversight (e.g., replacing the Office for Budget Responsibility with a more flexible fiscal transparency body).
The combination has been of large-scale capital investments across infrastructure, defence, housing, energy, and the NHS, combined with historic levels of tax and debt, driven by expansive social and economic programs.
There has been, to put it mildly, ambiguity in sustainable funding or convincing narratives of where savings will come from. And the pressures to spend even more are still mounting, with train drivers, doctors and civil servants pressing at her heels.
There is a good case to be made that she is financially incontinent as well as incompetent. She needs a fiscal nappy.
Madsen Pirie