344 days on from the General Election, all of the big pieces of Labour’s platform are now in place. The Comprehensive Spending Review has been a useful shield for Ministers when they speak to the media for months. As of Wednesday, it’s escaped from Rachel Reeves’ Red Box.

The Chancellor set out an overall increase of 2.3% in departmental budgets, but once surges to health and defence spending are accounted for, that’s very tight pretty much everywhere else.

On long-term investment projects, Reeves had more space to splash the cash – but after handing £14bn to the Sizewell C nuclear power plant, around £7bn a year to HS2 and rising budgets for affordable housing grants, even amid this largess, many demands will go unmet.

The plans follow last year’s controversial Budget – which let’s not forget included £40bn of new taxes on business, farmers, private schools and non-doms – and the major planks of a legislative agenda which is overhauling planning, nationalising the railways and scrapping NHS England to bring the health service back under political control.

For most of the past 344 days, Keir Starmer’s government has plunged in the polls, while Nigel Farage has reached new highs with Reform. While important Industry and Infrastructure Strategies are still to come, now the public knows pretty much what Labour’s plan is between now and the next election, can this shift?

The tragic air disaster in India and a renewed spasm of bombing in the Middle East wiped the SR from the airwaves within hours. More difficult still, it remains hard to work out what the Government’s story is.

Reeves spoke of “renewal” and “Labour choices” as she urged voters to agree this was a massive wave of investment to fix the sins of Tory government’s past. But she also preached about hard choices to protect the public finances and faces rows over policing and environmental budgets. Meanwhile, Farage promises everything can be made better, and the Tories warn of tax rises to come.

Is she a spender or a saver? Is the Chancellor driving her growth agenda or flapping in a hurricane of global turmoil that will force new tax rises in the autumn? Whether Starner and Reeves can dial in their campaign story will define whether they can rebuild their voter coalition.

(Photo provided by the Guardian)