Rachel Reeves is a woman under pressure.
Be careful what you wish for.
Rachel Reeves spent three years as shadow chancellor planning for the day when she would finally become the first female resident of 11 Downing Street.
Businesses were wooed and voters were told that Labour was “ready to serve, ready to lead, ready to rebuild Britain”.
All that hard work came to fruition last July when, after 14 years of the Tories’ economic under-performance, the country finally decided that Reeves and her party could be trusted with the public finances again.
Barely six months on from that landslide victory, however, the chancellor must surely be wondering what she let herself in for.
Every day seems to bring more gloomy economic news, with the past week alone seeing the cost of government borrowing hit a decades-long high – worse even than in the aftermath of Liz Truss’ disastrous mini-Budget.
The value of the pound – an indicator of the money markets’ confidence in the country – is falling, while inflation is going up and the economic growth Labour promised remains stubbornly elusive.
This is not what Reeves hoped for after she delivered her first Budget, which saw taxes increased by £40 billion to plug a £22 billion black hole Labour claims was left by the last government.
Amid the economic gloom, Reeves is this weekend in China trying to attract investment into the UK – a visit her critics said should be cancelled so the chancellor could be behind her desk at the Treasury instead.
When she does return to the UK at the start of next week,........