The first weekend of the new year brought some potentially good news for the Prime Minister and his Chancellor of the Exchequer from the Financial Times. A major story was headlined ‘Silver linings in economy offer relief to embattled PM’. This optimism was chiefly predicated on the likelihood of inflation continuing to fall and there being further cuts in interest rates from the Bank of England down the road. “Fading Budget uncertainty is feeding through to improved spending,” was the opinion of one City analyst whom the reporters spoke to. So how’s that going?

By the end of the first full week of January, not so well. The lead story in The Times opened up with “Rachel Reeves [the Chancellor] is poised to announce a bailout worth about £300 million for pubs that have been left on the brink of bankruptcy by rising business rates.” This problem arose from measures introduced in her budget. The hospitality industry had energised scores of Labour MPs to back their cause. And it’s not just pub owners who are outraged; the feeling is likewise among restaurateurs and hoteliers. Unhelpfully for the government, the newspaper pointed out that this would be the 12th major U-turn since it came to power.

Not only that, several U-turns have combined to mean a huge hit to the government finances – e.g. the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap, failing to rein in spending on benefits, amending the inheritance tax rules for farmers (hence the cow on the home page), halting plans to increase the base rate of income tax, and reinstating the winter-fuel payment. Labour has a thumping majority but what many of its MPs fear most is the party getting a thumping at the local and regional elections in May, which would massively increase the likelihood of the PM, Keir Starmer, being ousted before the summer is out.

In a recent column in The Guardian, its former economics editor, Larry Elliott, wrote: “Governments come into office brimming with confidence…expecting things to happen instantly, and are shocked to find that they don’t. The reason for that is simple: the British state is big – and getting bigger – but as an agent of change it is not up to the job.” Officials talk about creating an industrial strategy based on a net-zero future but actually do very little. China, on the other hand, set about making itself the market leader in the production of solar panels. The UK has the lowest record of investment of any G7 nation. Talking a good game is easy. Delivery requires rather more. A feature in The Times earlier this week wrote about quantum computing, a technological milestone development in which the UK has a “historical lead”. The author was distinctly concerned we are gradually frittering away our advantage.

Meanwhile, whether or not Keir Starmer is still PM come next Christmas, and no matter which party holds the most seats after the next general election, eventually somebody is going to have to work out how we can afford to pay to support an increasingly ageing population in a country in which increasingly fewer people are in work. And that’s all without the significant hike in defence spending which we have promised to provide. And people still talk about Dry January?