Where the math is defensible.
Long-form research on live enterprise decisions. Publication is selective. Every number traces to a named source. No takes without evidence.
UK Labour Year Two: Reeves, the Fiscal Lock, and the 2026 Spending Choice
Twenty months in, Rachel Reeves has redefined the borrowing rules, raised employer National Insurance, and committed to a 100 billion pound capital programme. The arithmetic for the 2026 Budget is unforgiving and the politics are tighter still.
Keir Starmer's government enters its second full fiscal year with the choices set in October 2024 hardening into a path. The 40 billion pound revenue raise was anchored on a 1.2 percentage point employer National Insurance increase and a lower secondary threshold. The 100 billion pound capital uplift over five years was made affordable on...
UK fiscal trajectory under Reeves: gilt market discipline meets a Labour spending review
Sterling assets are repricing the second year of Reeves's chancellorship. Two budgets, one spending review, and a quarter of acute gilt stress have left the fiscal stance technically compliant with the rules and operationally fragile. The next eighteen months decide whether the framework holds.
Rachel Reeves entered the 2026 budget cycle with public sector net debt at roughly 94.5 percent of GDP, a 30 year gilt yield that touched 5.43 percent in early April, and a tax take heading toward an all time high of 38 percent of GDP by 2030-31. The Autumn Budget 2025 raised an additional 26.1 billion pounds, the June 2025 Spending Revie...