It has been a wild January for Rachel Reeves and frankly for economics in the UK and the world.When Labour swept to victory last summer, Reeves pledged she would be an "iron" chancellor, reining in public spending and improving the lives of working people through growing the economy.

ANALYSIS: A leading eco-campaigner has already condemned Labour as 'worse than the Tories' and the Greens are ready to strike in key constituencies

A major speech Wednesday promises a host of pro-growth policies to turn the UK economy around. But the hurdles in the chancellor’s way are huge.

Chancellor’s optimistic economic growth vision hit in the short term as Tesco and Lloyds announce hundreds of job losses and she admits fixing the economy is ‘not an easy job’

As UK economics editor, my life for the last week has felt a lot like surrealist movie Being John Malkovich — but with Rachel Reeves in the central role.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said on Wednesday that "economic growth is the number one mission of this government" as she unveiled a series of proposals to boost the UK's economy. But how quickly could the government get growth from the plans she announced?

Rachel Reeves has vowed to slash red tape and go for growth in a quest to make working people feel “better off”.

Rachel Reeves delivered her big speech on growth. It contained a number of measures: some good (the Oxford/Cambridge arc tops that list), some bad (the third runway at Heathrow) and some added to give the list of growth initiatives the appearance of a more even regional distribution (the regeneration of Old Trafford).