CHANCELLOR Rachel Reeves risks pushing Britain into an economic “doom loop,” a top economist warned today as uproar broke out over the sacking of a top regulator.

Former Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane told Sky News that “it would be deeply counterproductive to both growth and to the fiscal position” if the Chancellor’s plans “led to a cutting back on investment and indeed in spending more generally.”

“Then I think you really are into a doom loop between debt and growth. And that’s a situation to avoid at all costs,” he warned.

Ms Reeves’s policy is presently focused on chasing growth while drawing up plans for new austerity measures. 

The floundering growth dash claimed a victim with the dismissal of Competition and Markets Authority chairman Marcus Bokkerink.

The Chancellor said that Mr Bokkerink recognised “it was time for him to move on and make way for somebody who does share the mission and the strategic direction that this government are taking.”

But her pick as the new CMA chief, which is supposed to focus on protecting consumers, sparked an immediate row. 

Long-time Amazon UK boss Doug Gurr is to take over at least temporarily.

GMB union national secretary Andy Prendergast said: “The appointment of a former Amazon man to chair a financial body intended to combat unfair market monopolies is a slap in the face to workers.

“We urge ministers to think again — Amazon repeatedly and brazenly flout workers’ rights, and their market dominance has put a choke-hold on our high streets.” 

A Momentum spokesman agreed: “The Labour Party was founded to represent the interests of the working class, yet the current leadership cosies up to corporate bosses who willingly undermine workers’ rights.

“Decisions like this explain why the Labour government’s polling is so dire. The government should rethink this decision.”

Ms Reeves however was not listening to workers but to bosses gathered at their annual meeting in Davos.

She told them that regulators had to focus on “tearing down the regulatory barriers that hold back growth.”

Mrs Reeves also channelled her inner Peter Mandelson by saying she was “absolutely” relaxed about people becoming wealthy.

The remarks echo the new Washington ambassador’s notorious assertion that New Labour was “intensely relaxed about the filthy rich.”  

But the bad news followed her to Switzerland, with the announcement that government borrowing jumped unexpectedly to £17.8 billion In December, £10bn more than a year earlier.

Capital Economics warned that the news “combined with a weakening economy suggest that, in order to meet her fiscal rules, the chancellor may need to raise taxes and/or cut spending” in March.

And indeed Ms Reeves left her deputy Darren Jones back home to reiterate that “our fiscal rules are non-negotiable and we will have an iron grip on the public finances.”

Benefits for the disabled are understood to be a top target. 

In other developments, polling for the first time showed Labour behind both the Tories and Reform, on numbers which would condemn nine cabinet members to electoral oblivion.