OBR Bombshell: Reeves’ Britain Now Officially on Course for the Most Miserable Growth Forecast Since… Well, EVER!

Hold the front page, folks – the Office for Budget Responsibility has just taken a flamethrower to Rachel Reeves’ “decade of renewal” fantasy and torched every single growth forecast for this entire parliament. Yes, you read that right: slower growth in 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028, and 2029 than they thought just eight months ago. That’s not a “revision”, that’s a full-blown economic obituary penned by the government’s own independent watchdog.

Welcome to Stagnation-on-Steroids 2.0 – now with extra misery sprinkles!

The OBR’s latest Economic and Fiscal Outlook dropped yesterday like a lead balloon in a paddling pool, and the numbers are so grim they make the Truss mini-budget chaos look like a minor hiccup at a village fete.

• 2025 growth slashed from 2.0% to a pathetic 1.1%
• 2026 cut from 2.0% to a limp 1.0%
• 2027 down from 1.9% to 1.3%
• 2028 and 2029 both trimmed to levels that wouldn’t get a hamster excited

Translation: the British economy is now forecast to grow slower under Labour than it did under the last five years of Tory austerity, Covid, and Brexit combined. Let that sink in while you’re queuing for the food bank you never thought you’d need.

How Did We Get Here? Let Me Count the Reeves Ways…

1. £40 billion tax raid on jobs (hello, National Insurance hike – the tax on work)
2. Crushing business confidence faster than you can say “investment strike”
3. A Budget that even the OBR says will “weigh on growth” for years
4. Energy prices kept artificially high because, well, Net Zero virtue signalling doesn’t pay the bills
5. Public sector “investment” that somehow never translates into actual productivity

The OBR politely calls it “persistent weakness in the labour market and lower productivity growth”. I call it a self-inflicted wound delivered by a Chancellor who thinks wealth creation is something you tax into existence.

The Really Terrifying Bit They Don’t Want You to Notice

Buried on page 87 of the report: the OBR now thinks potential output – the speed limit of the economy – has been permanently scarred. That’s economist-speak for “Britain just got poorer forever because Labour scared the investors away”.

Remember when Sir Keir Starmer promised “the fastest growth in the G7”? Turns out that was just the fastest growth in fairy tales. Britain is now officially projected to be the slowest-growing economy in the G7 for the next two years. Congratulations, comrades – mission accomplished!

What Should You Do Before the Next Budget Hammer Blow?

While Reeves is busy rewriting economic reality, here’s what smart readers are doing right now:

• Protecting what little wealth they have left 
• Diversifying out of sterling before the pound gets another kicking
• Stockpiling anything that isn’t nailed down by HMRC

Protect Yourself Before the Next Hammer Blow Lands

While Reeves rewrites economic reality with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop, here's what my sharp-eyed readers are doing right now to batten down the hatches:

• Arming up with battle-tested guides to outfox the fiscal fools: Snag The Tax-Free Wealth by Tom Wheelwright – the ultimate playbook for keeping HMRC's mitts off your hard-earned brass (a bestseller that's saved more fortunes than Starmer's got excuses). Grab it here on Amazon: link

• For a proper chuckle amid the chaos (because laughter's the best tax dodge), dive into Death by Bureaucracy by Kenneth J. Glassman – eviscerates government waste like I do Reeves, but with footnotes. Your copy awaits: link

• And don't sleep on The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton – skewers the "broke government" bollocks from a MMT angle that'll have you rethinking (and protecting) every penny. Essential reading: link

• Shifting savings out of sterling before the pound takes another pasting

• Hoarding anything that isn't yet on the Chancellor's chopping block

These aren't just books – they're your financial flak jackets. Click through, buy smart, and let's turn those OBR downgrades into someone else's problem. 

The Final Nail

The OBR has just confirmed what anyone with a calculator already knew: Labour’s “plan for growth” is the economic equivalent of putting diesel in a Formula 1 car and wondering why it’s going backwards.

Five years of downgrades. Five years of excuses. Five years of watching your living standards evaporate while ministers tell you it’s all “global headwinds” (funny how France and Germany are managing just fine, eh?).

Britain didn’t vote for decline. But decline is exactly what this government is delivering – and now even their own referee has blown the whistle.

Wake up, Britain. Before there’s nothing left to wake up to.