William Davies joins Tom to assess the efforts of the new Labour government in tackling the UK's many economic challenges. They consider whether Rachel Reeves’s first budget, with its substantial tax rises, can do anything more than arrest the decline of the public finances, and what Keir Starmer hopes to achieve with his public overtures to the likes of Google and BlackRock. Will their technocratic style of government be able to survive the pressures of populist politics, or is their long-term thinking simply too long-term to bring election-winning improvements to people’s everyday lives? Read William Davies's piece: https://lrb.me/davies4622pod More audio from the LRB: Discover the LRB's subscription podcast, Close Readings, and audiobooks here: https://lrb.me/audio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.