Does Rachel Reeves have the answers?

Rachel Reeves has given her much-anticipated speech about what she’d do as the first female chancellor in history. As briefed, her Mais lecture was a look at Labour’s ‘securonomics’ economic policy, with promises to beef up the Treasury, as well as analysis of Nigel Lawson’s 1984 Mais lecture, and an insistence that ‘I don’t want to make this a party political speech any more than you want me to’.

Some of the most striking lines were the ones where she reflected on Labour’s own record in government, telling the audience that ‘the analysis on which [New Labour’s policies were] built was too narrow’ and that ‘stability was a necessary, but not a sufficient condition to generate private sector investment.’

She also warned that Britain is unconsciously walking into an era of bigger state spending: not something you’d expect to hear a Labour shadow chancellor say.