Michael Simmons

Will any political party ever take on the triple lock? The answer from Reform’s Robert Jenrick yesterday appeared to be no.  At a press conference where Jenrick, Reform’s Treasury spokesman, appeared to junk nearly everything Reform had previously said on economic and fiscal policy. He chucked overboard what was in many ways a left-leaning approach to both economic and fiscal policy and adopted a list of proposals that would be right at home in a Tory manifesto. That included committing to keeping the triple lock – which guarantees the state pension rises by the highest of earnings, inflation or a floor of 2.5 per cent.

With Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership in perpetual peril, it seems instructive to pay closer attention to his potential successors. On that, there have been two noteworthy interventions this week. The first from Ed Miliband who told the Today programme: ‘I tell you what angers Keir most about this country, it’s class. It’s the class divide.’ Not to be outdone, Andy Burnham then told a Resolution Foundation think-tank event that the focus of British politics needed to switch to lower earners. They present a Britain where capital exploits cheap labour, resulting in profound and widespread poverty. But that’s not the Britain we’re in Both men seem to want to focus on a country that does not exist.

Wes Streeting was bang on when he told Peter Mandelson the government had ‘no growth strategy at all’. The Health Secretary's claim seems to have been confirmed by figures, just released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which show Britain’s economy grew by just 0.1 per cent in the last three months of 2025. On a per capita basis the numbers were even worse: we're in recession. What is worrying given the make up of our economy is that there was no services growth at all, and construction contracted by 2.1 per cent. The only area of the economy that expanded (by 1.2 per cent) was production.

By the end of last week, it was clear the Prime Minister is a goner – the debate moved to the pace of his demise. That sped up yesterday with the resignation of Morgan McSweeney, his chief of staff. Starmer’s prospects looked very bleak indeed when I turned on the Today programme this morning to hear a defence of the PM being mounted by Baroness Smith of Malvern. I wouldn’t pretend to understand the government's communications strategy, but it doesn’t exactly scream confidence when the most senior spokesperson offered up for the morning media round is a junior skills minister from the Lords. A few hours later, the man in charge of that media strategy (and the fourth person to hold the job in 12 months), Tim Allan, jacked his job in and followed McSweeney out the door.

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has just voted to hold interest rates at 3.75 per cent. While market expectations and pundit’s predictions overwhelmingly foresaw a hold, the vote came in slightly tighter than expected at five against four. The decision came alongside new forecasts from the Bank that predict inflation falling back to the 2 per cent target from April, in what will be a relief to the government and indeed the rest of us. In even better news for Rachel Reeves, in the Bank’s ‘Monetary Policy Report’, also released today, it gave the government some credit for ‘developments in energy prices including from Budget 2025’.

I want to congratulate the Department for Work and Pensions. They’ve made the excellent decision to – once again – refuse compensation to the Waspi women. The cohort of 3.6 million women born in the 1950s claim to have not been informed that their state pension age would rise – bringing it into line with the male retirement age. Their campaign group (Women Against State Pension Inequity) have led one of the most vocal but ridiculous campaigns in modern British history. Despite leaflets being individually written, information campaigns in doctors’ offices, and relentless TV and online adverts, the group claims that they were not adequately informed of the pension age change, and thus should be compensated from the pockets of the rest of us.

Rachel Reeve’s jobs collapse is trundling on. Figures just released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that 155,000 payroll jobs were wiped out in the year up to November. Some 33,000 were lost in a single month. In total, over 200,000 jobs have disappeared since the Chancellor’s first Budget when she announced a £25 billion raid on employer National Insurance.  In response to that tax hike, and throughout the uncertainty in the run-up to Labour’s second Budget last year, business paused their hiring plans and stopped replacing staff as they left. They don’t appear to have begun rehiring. Flash estimates for December (which are very likely to be revised) show a further drop of 43,000 jobs.

Britain’s economy is standing still. Figures just released by the Office for National Statistics show GDP grew by just 0.1 per cent in the three months to November. The numbers were dragged down by the construction sector, which saw a contraction of 1.1 per cent – its largest fall in nearly three years. GDP grew by just 0.1 per cent in the three months to November There were much better figures for the month of November alone though, which saw growth of 0.3 per cent following a fall of 0.1 per cent in October. That was thanks to services growth of 0.3 per cent and production growth of 1.1 per cent. The Chancellor Rachel Reeves will be hoping that these month-on-month figures – which have come in stronger than economists had expected – will hold out over the long term.