Hi ,

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves has delivered a spending review, releasing a large amount of money for capital investment while also committing to further spending cuts in order to meet the UK's self-imposed fiscal rules. This wasn't ever going to be something that challenged the UK's failed systems of inequality, but there are points of hope – and the seemingly last-minute changes brought big shifts in spending and messaging that show just how much pressure is being brought onto the government.

First off, lets take a step back. This is a spending review being done in a crisis. Regardless of the reporting about "winners and losers" from the review, we need to put all this in the context of the years of austerity hollowing out public services; the way that privatisations since the 1980s shifted massive amounts of public wealth and democratic control to the private sector; and the way that wealth, income, and power has become incredibly concentrated in the hands of the richest. There is, by almost any count, more wealth in the UK than there's ever been. We just can't put it to any good use.

The question for every budget and spending review should be whether the government challenges these systems. Disappointingly, they didn't.

Above: We joined Green New Deal Rising, Tax Justice UK, Positive Money, JustFair and MPs from Labour and the Greens to demand taxes on the rich on the morning of the spending review.

The government has thrown a lot of big numbers around in this spending review and they're very keen to combat the accusation that they're continuing austerity. As we go into, the numbers conceal a lot that isn't so positive.

But is this austerity? In many ways, austerity was never about the numbers; the Conservative-led governments spent hundreds of billions on tax cuts. It was about the impact it had on people and communities. Changing the sums on government accounting books allows politicians to argue that they've ended austerity and point to the size of the fiscal expansion, but until we are investing in people and planet, the spirit of austerity is alive and well. Already, the government has gotten right back to planning big welfare cuts for people with disabilities and long-term illnesses. It's good that the government have felt the public pressure to say they're changing the UK's course, but this review seems unlikely to actually start changing the UK's course – and as we've seen, this gap between rhetoric and reality is how you erode public trust and encourage support for the far right.

This continued starvation of public good isn't necessary. There's an enormous amount of money in the UK; by any metric we're richer than we were when we built the welfare state. But that wealth is concentrated in the hands of the super rich. We need policies that start taxing the rich fairly and building public wealth. 

We're not standing by while inequality deepens – that's why we were outside parliament yesterday demanding taxes on extreme wealth. Your support allows us to be radical and authentic without worrying about the demands of billionaire funders. In the spirit of the spending review, help us keep up the momentum by donating to help to fund our fightback.

Will you chip in today and make our next action even bigger? It takes just 2 minutes to make a difference!

Transformational or more austerity - how do you feel about this spending review? And do you prefer it to the last budget?

Thanks to everyone who votes! The results will be reported next week.

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