Author: Heather Stewart Economics editor

Politicians tend to hate being boring but Rachel Reeves will be delighted if Tuesday’s spring forecast is judged by voters and financial markets to be reassuringly dull.After Labour’s catastrophic Gorton and Denton byelection result, the chancellor’s future, along with that of the prime minister, is on the line, as backbench MPs fret about the party’s electoral prospects.As Mujtaba Rahman of the consultancy Eurasia Group put it on Friday: “Like [Keir] Starmer, the chancellor is also fighting for her political life” – whether because the prime minister himself falls, or chooses to move his chancellor in a reset reshuffle.Against that backdrop,…