You make your own luck in life, so it’s hardly surprising Rachel Reeves has been so short of it. When you go to the country pledging no new taxes on “working people”, then hit them with £75billion in just 18 months, you don’t deserve much sympathy. If you try to snatch the winter fuel payment from single pensioners on as little as £11,350 a year, no amount of luck can save you. If you drive up unemployment by slapping crippling taxes on jobs, you’re on your own. And if you deliver a Budget that plunges the economy into panic and stagnation, luck walks out the door.

Yet for a moment it seemed her luck had turned. Reeves and Keir Starmer always knew the first couple of years in power would be painful, as voters discovered what Labour really had in store for them after all those soothing pre-election promises. But they hoped that by the time the next election rolled around in 2029, voters might finally feel a little better off. That’s why they planned to hammer the cost-of-living message this year.

With inflation expected to fall to 2% by the spring, Reeves hoped households might start to feel a little better off. Now that strategy has been shot down in flames.

Falling inflation would have opened the door for further interest rate cuts, easing pressure on businesses, consumers and homeowners. Lower rates would also have reduced gilt yields and government borrowing costs, giving Reeves a little more fiscal headroom. With luck, she might even have avoided new tax rises in the next Budget. Although knowing Reeves, she’d probably have hiked them anyway.

Reeves was dying to claim the credit for falling inflatino, but the truth is it would have fallen much faster if she hadn’t piled on the tax hikes while handing the public sector inflation-busting pay increases. In Europe, interest rates hit 2% months ago. In Britain they remain stuck around 3.75%, thanks in part to her.

It’s not going to fall now. Instead, it will rocket back up. Labour didn’t start the war in Iran. But Reeves has left us horribly exposed to the financial fallout.

Oil prices are already surging. Barely 10 days ago a barrel of crude cost around $70. Now it’s pushing $95, a three-year high. Some warn it could hit $150 or $200. Drivers are already feeling that at the pumps. Soon it will ripple across the entire economy, including in food prices. UK borrowing costs are rising at the fastest rate since the disastrous Liz Truss mini-Budget in September 2022, costing us billions. They’ll also drive mortgage rates back up.

Reeves repeatedly insists she’s “restored stability” to the public finances. Yet growth has ground to a halt, and the UK’s debt and deficit remain sky high. Plus we have to pump tens of billions into defence, with our armed forces in dire straits.

As the war spreads and sucks in more countries, the cost-of-living squeeze will return with a vengeance. And since Labour’s backbenchers refuse to tolerate spending cuts while the bond market balks at lending even more, the burden may fall on taxpayers again. This autumn’s Budget could be another horror show. Let’s hope this is a short war, the Chancellor’s luck won’t survive a long one. Nor will the UK economy.