| The French government nearing collapse is dominating the news today. At first look, what’s happening in France couldn’t be more different from our situation – their government is a crumbling coalition, while the mighty majority in the UK should make our government an edifice. But on both sides of the Channel the same ructions apply: we are both advanced economies with unpopular budgets, which are causing some people to get a taste for resistance. At lunchtime the French government offered National Rally leader Marine Le Pen a “final hour concession” to head off a proposed vote of no-confidence in the government. By tea time, Prime Minister Michel Barnier had had enough and rammed his budget through without a vote and setting wheels in motion for an expected no-confidence vote as early as Wednesday. Apart from chaos in France, this turbulence in one of the UK’s biggest trading partners adds to the headwinds buffeting a government with already shrinking fiscal headroom. It’s quite a phoenix-like return for Le Pen who, as our reporters remind us, stumbled in the second round of the elections in June after being out-manoeuvred by a coalition of the left. But now, just a few months later, she’s the “ultimate power broker in Paris.”  Michel Barnier today Photographer: Stephane De Sakutin/Getty Images Barnier was appointed as prime minister to tackle the situation and bring that fabled sense that the grownups were back in charge. Noting this, isn’t it time we also grew up and retired the concept of the “grownups being in charge” being an immediate solution for any problem? In recent months we have seen many such collective sighs of relief, only for these new brooms to get stuck clearing up the same mess. Bloomberg Opinion’s Lionel Laurent last week wrote that: “Now the fear is that Barnier and [Emmanuel] Macron are a fragile double-act that will only delay rather than neutralize France’s populist moment.” And of Barnier? “He has experience of this kind of crisis, having shepherded a united Europe during the Brexit crisis. Yet he now leads a country that looks more like the UK of that era — a gridlocked parliament, funereal investor sentiment and a political class putting party before nation.” Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves might not feel that their tricky days are completely behind them, after complaints from farmers, the elderly and business owners. Sure, the next election is still an eternity away – so far away that I would rather like us to ban all talk of it for a while – but it’s a reminder that in these advanced economies there are few easy options for raising revenue. Starmer has long held himself to be the antidote to rising far right politics in Europe and this Thursday we are due a big speech that, we are told, will be filled with detailed pledges by which the public should judge him. Pledges seem a major part of tackling public fatigue with their elected officials. Pledges, and reviews. Recently someone crunched the numbers and found that Starmer has announced a new review nearly every other day since being elected (something his new cabinet secretary, Sir Christopher Wormald, appointed today may have a view on). But the chancellor has made pledges that already, less than two months on from the budget (and in some cases just days later), are in danger of already being broken. Even the overall pledge to only do one fiscal event a year might be wobbly — Philip Aldrick sets out why this is looking increasingly like it might have to be junked with an unscheduled mini-budget possible in the spring. “The Office for Budget Responsibility, the government’s fiscal watchdog, is expected by some economists to declare that Britain’s finance minister will be breaking her own fiscal rules when it delivers its spring economic update by the end of March. That could force Reeves into an unscheduled mini-budget in a moment of fresh market peril after a rocky reception to her budget.” Let’s see, but there’s a good chance the smartest pledge ends up being to lay off the pledges. Want this in your inbox each weekday? You can sign up here. | 
