Rachel Reeves is right about one thing: the UK needs a safety buffer in its finances.

But as a Labour Chancellor, she faces a financial world that doesn’t cut her any slack.

Even when the government’s finances are healthy, right‑wing investors and institutions can create shocks — like the Bank of England’s ill-timed bond sales last month – that make borrowing more expensive and public finances look fragile. In that sense, having some fiscal headroom is wise.

But here’s the problem: Reeves is going about it all wrong.

Instead of targeting the wealthy, she’s looking to ordinary people — cutting public services and raising their taxes — to provide the buffer.

Simon Wren-Lewis at Mainly Macro has pointed out that headroom is often used as an excuse to punish the public.

Once measures are introduced, they are rarely reversed, even if the economy performs better than expected.

In other words, ordinary people get hit now, but there’s no guarantee they will ever get their tax money or public services back if the fiscal pressure turns out to be unnecessary.

You see, the main danger here is not spending a little extra when needed; it’s taking the wrong decisions, like cutting benefits or other essential services in a way that ensures they cannot be brought back.

Reeves could achieve her goal more fairly: there is plenty of untapped money among the wealthy — lawyers, doctors, accountants, corporations — that could be taxed instead. She needs to take from people who can actually afford to go without some cash.

In fact, many of them would not even notice the loss.

That way she gets her safety buffer, protects public services, and doesn’t make life harder for the rest of us.

In short: Reeves is right to want a financial safety net. But the way she plans to build it — at the expense of ordinary households — is exactly the wrong approach.

Fiscal prudence doesn’t have to come at the expense of fairness.