Pity Rachel Reeves, the United Kingdom’s chancellor of the exchequer. Before she had even gotten through her highly anticipated “growth speech” on January 29, criticism flooded social media and the airwaves. Her approach is too scattered, some said, and too reliant on measures that will be felt only over the long term. Some programs run counter to the government’s environmental commitments, others said, and they are not evenly distributed across the UK. It is all too expensive. Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary even went so far as to declare publicly that Reeves “hasn’t a clue”.

Don’t get me wrong: the speech was not perfect. But perfection is not possible under the UK’s current economic and financial conditions, and to pursue an elusive optimum would be to make the perfect the enemy of the good. Moreover, Reeves’ speech did succeed in five areas.