Britain’s leading business group, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), slashed its growth forecasts too.

It expects the UK economy to expand by just 1.2% in 2025 and a miserable 1% in 2026 – down from previous predictions of 1.6% and 1.5%, respectively.

Worse still, unemployment is rising. The CBI expects it to hit 4.8% next year, up from today’s 4.6%. That’s more people out of a job.

Meanwhile, inflation is forecast to rebound to 3.5% between July and September, scuppering interest rate cuts.

The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee meets tomorrow, but it’s expected to hold base rates at 4.25%.

Instead of cutting mortgage rates, lenders have started to increase them again.

Yes, Reeves inherited a bad hand from the Tories. But every decision she’s taken has made things worse.

Her decision to hike employer national insurance (NI) contributions by £25billion in her budget has driven up prices and destroyed jobs.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) warned in advance that employers would pass the cost on by cutting staff or raising prices. It didn’t stop her.

The Budget NI hike is also behind the surge in unemployment on Reeves’s watch. Some 250,000 jobs have disappeared since she took charge.

Former Treasury official Andy King has said: “The employer NI and national living wage rises look to have done much more damage to employment than was allowed for.”

So what about growth?

That died the moment Reeves took charge and started talking the economy down, then threatening us with tax cuts. Before delivering them in spades.

The CBI accused her of killing growth and it’s not the only organisation slashing forecasts. The Bank of England, OBR and IMF have all halved theirs.

Without growth, the only way she will pay for all her extra spending is by hiking taxes in her next Budget, as many experts now expect.

So who does Wreck-it Reeves blame?

The useless Tories, first. Never mind that the economy was starting to pick up in the final stretch of Rishi Sunak’s doomed government. Or that she’s been pulling the strings for almost a year.

Next, she blames global instability – particularly Donald Trump’s tariff threats, which are real, but not the whole story.

When borrowing costs rose in January she blamed “economic volatility”, but when the Bank of England cuts interest rates, that’s all down to her policies.

She talks about “stabilising the public finances” but the bond markets see only chaos. They now charge the UK more interest to borrow than any other major economy.

Reeves made a dog’s breakfast of winter fuel payments and sparked a mass exodus of wealthy non-doms, and her efforts to correct those errors have only made things worse.

She can’t pin that on anyone else, but I’m sure she’ll try.

This mess is of the Chancellor’s own making. But you wouldn’t know it from listening to Reeves. Because when it all goes wrong, she’ll blame anyone but herself.