Will Reeves boost public sector pay?

As the dust around the election settles, a question Tory MPs and supporters still grapple with is why Rishi Sunak called the election when he did – not least because economic indicators point to improvements over the summer and autumn, as inflation returns to target and growth starts to pick up. But Rachel Reeves, the new Chancellor, is having none of this narrative. ‘I really don’t buy this idea that somehow we’ve been handed a golden inheritance,’ she told Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC this morning, in her first sit-down interview since she entered No. 11. ‘If the former prime minister and chancellor had thought things were so good, they would have allowed the election to take place in the autumn. They called an election because they weren’t willing to make tough decisions, and they just ran away.’

It’s a point former chancellor Jeremy Hunt disputed when he sat down with Kuenssberg afterwards: Reeves ‘wants to lay the ground for tax rises’ he said.