DAILY MAIL COMMENT: This downturn is of Labour's own making PODCAST: Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Karoline Leavitt and the biggest myth about Trump. Listen to Welcome to MAGAland here By DAILY MAIL COMMENT Published: 22:56 GMT, 14 March 2025 | Updated: 22:56 GMT, 14 March 2025 e-mail View comments It's an old political maxim that when you're stuck in a mess of your own making the best thing to do is create a diversion. If you can persuade the public to look the other way, even temporarily, they might not realise the full extent of your failings.
However, as Rachel Reeves is finding out, it doesn't always work. She has already tried blaming the Tories for her own ham-fisted ineptitude. Yesterday, she blamed geo-political uncertainty for the UK's woeful new growth figures.
Contrary to expectation, GDP shrank by 0.1 per cent in January, with pubs, manufacturing and hospitality showing the sharpest downturn. According to the Chancellor, this was largely down to global turbulence.
But how much genuine turbulence was there in January? True, the war in Ukraine was still grinding on and there was a threat of US tariffs, but nothing dramatic had actually happened. Indeed, the markets were positively buoyant following the election of President Donald Trump . The real drag on growth, as every dog in the street knows, is Ms Reeves' disastrous October Budget , which saddled the country with £40billion in extra taxes and paved the way for a public spending splurge of .
