If you sat through the entire spending review speech delivered by Rachel Reeves in the House of Commons, you might have been lulled into a sense that the UK was awash with a wealth of riches as the chancellor sprinkled billions across the land.
There were billions for social housing, nuclear power stations, rail lines and research and development to power the economy.
There was money for schools, the police, the NHS, and defence spending, as the chancellor sketched out her roadmap for Britain for years to come, with an acknowledgement that the government – and particularly this chancellor – had endured a difficult first year.
“We are renewing Britain. But I know that too many people in too many parts of our country are yet to feel it…the purpose of this spending review is to change that,” she said.
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There was £113bn of borrowing to fund capital investment and an extra £190bn over the course of the parliament for public services, fuelled by those contentious tax rises in the budget last autumn. This was a Labour chancellor turning her back on austerity.
“In place of decline, I choose investment. In place of retreat, I choose national renewal,” she said.
The chancellor deserves credit for the capital investment, which she hopes will unlock jobs and power economic growth. But when something sounds too good to be true, it normally is.
For me, former shadow chancellor John McDonnell hit the nail on the head on Wednesday night as he remarked rather wryly to me that “the greater the applause on the day, the greater the disappointment by the weekend”.
