The UK chancellor of the exchequer would not have wanted to deliver her spring statement against the background of a fresh threat to the world economy.

For while Rachel Reeves announced that she has the “right economic plan for the country” in a “yet more uncertain world”, the conflict in the Middle East will undoubtedly complicate the UK’s economic prospects. And the latest economic forecast by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), to which she was responding, may already be out of date.

It was too late, for example, for the OBR calculations to include any potential shocks in the global supply chain, or a spike in energy prices that may result from the US-Israeli strikes on Iran. At a press conference after Reeves’ statement however, an OBR representative warned that it could have “a very significant impact”. And they added that even before the crisis unfolded, the UK had faced an unusually high degree of uncertainty.

But otherwise, the OBR report – little changed from the autumn – paints a mixed picture for the UK economy. Weaker economic and job growth is somewhat balanced by the prospects of lower inflation and lower interest rates.

The government’s........

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