Working to make government more effective

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves speaks during a press conference in the Downing Street Briefing Room in Downing Street
Podcast

Will Trump rip up Reeves’s rebalanced books?

Stewart Wood, a Labour peer and former adviser to Gordon Brown, joins the podcast team to assess Rachel Reeves’s attempts to turn around the economy.

Spring has nearly sprung, but the fiscal forecasts made for a rather gloomy spring statement for Rachel Reeves. Stewart Wood, a Labour peer and former adviser to Gordon Brown, joins the podcast team to assess the state of the economy – and Reeves’s attempts to turn it around.

How much will welfare cuts upset Labour backbenchers? What could Donald Trump's tariffs mean for Reeves's plans? And just how difficult are the choices awaiting the chancellor as the spending review approaches?

Plus: New IfG research focuses on left-behind groups – and sets out some of the tensions in how the government is approaching one of its missions and milestones.

People featured in this episode

Senior leadership
Gemma Tetlow

Gemma Tetlow

Executive Director for Research and Innovation

Related content

16 JUN 2026 Comment

Brexit at 10: The economy

Whatever the rhetoric, exiting a large trading bloc was always going to hurt the economy.