Britain cannot continue to “muddle through” and must take “a different path” on the economy, the Chancellor has said.
Ahead of her second Budget on November 26, Rachel Reeves told The Times Magazine that the country could not continue on its current trajectory.
But she admitted she was “not even sure any more what the popular path is” amid calls for a wealth tax from some politicians and heavy tax and spending cuts from others.
She said: “There are lots of people who say cut taxes and the economy will grow, but what spending would they cut?”
Overnight, Sir Keir Starmer insisted the Budget would reflect “Labour values” and be “based on fairness”.
The Prime Minister said it would prioritise protecting public services, particularly the NHS, cutting the national debt and tackling the cost of living.
But Ms Reeves faces a difficult challenge to achieve those aims thanks to weak economic growth, persistent inflation and an expected downgrade to official productivity forecasts.
Those challenges mean she is widely expected to raise taxes in an effort to bridge a multibillion-pound gap in her spending plans.
And on Friday, she suffered a further blow as official figures showed Government borrowing was £3 billion higher in October than the Office for Budget Responsibility had expected.
In her interview, Ms Reeves said: “Borrowing is too high, but you can’t cut it overnight. Public services are a mess, but we haven’t got loads of money to throw at them and we have to use what we’ve got well.
“We can’t just carry on like this and muddle through. We have to make some decisions to get on a different path.”
But she also hit out at her critics, saying she was “sick of people mansplaining how to be Chancellor to me”.
Suggesting at least some of the criticism was motivated by sexism from “boys who now write newspaper columns”, she said: “I recognise that I’ve got a target on me. You can see that in the media; they’re going for me all the time. It’s exhausting.
“But I’m not going to let them bring me down by undermining my character or my confidence. I’ve seen off a lot of those boys before and I’ll continue to do so.”
