If you had asked me in July last year whether I had much hope for Labour’s plans for fixing our stagnating economy, our underfunded public services, and chronically weak social investment, I might have (cautiously) said “maybe”. But a year and four months later, I think I’d like to change my answer to “absolutely not”.

You would think that after fourteen years of being stuck in opposition, whether that be due to bacon sarnies or the Brexit bonanza, they would have had time to think. I, personally, at that time went to school, college, got a job, and fell in and out of love (much like the Parliamentary Labour Party does with their leadership), went to university (and somehow ended up as a Liberal Democrat), but I always thought about what I wanted to do.

However, much like a university student who procrastinates right up until deadline day (pre-ADHD meds me), they’ve put forward something that would barely get a “pass”. They came into government, telling us they would fix the dire state of our economy, but if anything they’ve done the opposite. They spent months handwringing about the importance of work, and intimidating vulnerable people with loss of benefits if they didn’t, but now unemployment is rising – due to their own policy. They promised there would be “no new taxes on working people”, and just as Keir Starmer hoodwinked Labour members in 2021, he’s hoodwinked the public with more stealth taxes.

Rachel Reeves has put in place her “fiscal rules”, and while she may claim to be pro-investment, her very own rules discourage borrowing to invest. She talked about Labour being the “Party of Work”, but by failing to borrow to invest in infrastructure projects, she’s left working people far worse off, with less opportunities, and worse social mobility. Labour are just incoherent, self-contradictory, and seem utterly unable to deliver for Britain right now.

Of course, you might be thinking “we’ve seen worse”, and you’d be right. I mean Liz Truss was something else, even if she was just PM for 49 days. By the way, on behalf of the Young Liberals (the “Liberal Democrat Youth and Students” at the time): we’re not taking the blame for that one. But, just getting to my point: the bar for a “bad budget” is too high, and Britain deserves so much better. This is a country begging for investment, for growth, for social mobility and a way forward, but Labour just don’t seem to know what they want to do

To be fair to Rachel Reeves, it’s not an easy job – it’s probably harder than being Prime Minister, and in the face of what some horrid pundits and broadsheets have spouted, she’s kept going. But perhaps it’s time for her to reflect, to start looking at other levers she can pull, and start really going for the growth that we need to come out of this.

We must grow out of austerity economics, we must restore state capacity to what it should be, and improve wage growth so we can live better. We are not in terminal decline as a country, but we are in a bind – this government can’t seem to invest in people, and as a result those people can’t afford to invest much more in them.

* Jack Carter is the Co-Accessibility, Diversity, and Inclusion Officer of the Young Liberals, a Computing student with an interest in social and economic policy, mental health, and digital fields.