2 hours ago
5
When your luck is out, your luck is out. Time to accept what the fates have to throw at you. It was always going to be a bit of a stretch for Rachel Reeves to maintain she had a brilliant plan and the economy had never been in better health when the figures show a fall in growth and a rise in unemployment. Unless you happen to think those things aren’t so bad after all.
To do so three days after the beginning of Donald Trump’s Awfully Big Iranian Adventure when oil and gas prices are rising, the bond markets are in turmoil and stock markets around the world are falling, begins to look a bit previous. Almost tin-eared.
But this was the chancellor’s moment at the dispatch box for the spring statement and she was determined to have her say. And she could pretty much say what she wanted as, for the first time since George Osborne was in charge of the economy, the spring statement would be just that. A statement.
There would be no spending or fiscal commitments. Where George had needed a second budgetary event in March to correct the damage he had done six months previously, Reeves has worked out that any U-turns and corrections are best left to later in the year.
So for this statement, there had been none of the usual leaks from Treasury staff about expected tax rises. Not because the Treasury has tightened up the security around its comms team, but because there was genuinely nothing to leak.
For special advisers this is the ultimate nightmare. They live to wield power.
Shortly after 12.35pm, Rachel rose to her feet. “We have the right economic plan for this country,” she began. Not a plan that was more right than the plan of any other party’s plan. But one specially tailored for us. And frankly more than we deserved.
Then, bizarrely, she doubled down with a reference to Trump’s Nobel war prize campaign. Yes, she had vaguely heard there were conflicts raging on multiple fronts in the Middle East. But we were not to worry our pretty little heads too much about them. Everything was in hand. In fact her plan was more important now than ever, as she had accidentally made plans for war within her existing plan.
As so often when there is nothing much being said and it feels that the Commons is largely performative, MPs on both sides started shouting cheers and abuse. Mainly as a way of keeping themselves amused. It was mildly amusing to start with but soon became fairly tedious.
There again, they were being given little to work with. After saying the bit about inflation and interest rates going down, she just cut the bits about growth falling and unemployment rising. They weren’t even squeezed out in a mumbled aside.
There were brief references to austerity and Liz Truss, but this was never going to be the moment for a major reset with the EU. Something that could make a material difference to GDP within 10 years. Rather, Reeves just kept things tribal. “The question voters will be asking themselves at the next election is do I feel better off?” she said. The jury is still out on that one. Though the more pressing question on Labour voters’ minds may be: will Keir Starmer and Reeves still be in a job?
Thankfully, things cheered up a bit when the shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, stood up to reply for the opposition. He’s always seemed like a nice enough bloke, but he is yet to realise that Kemi Badenoch only appointed him for the LOLs. She and her shadow cabinet enjoy the sight of Mel shooting himself down in flames at every opportunity. This kind of uselessness has to be nurtured.
We may not see its like again. There again, there is always Chris Philp. Mel is like the most junior data inputter who has been handed a file packed with multi-coloured Post-it notes, has no idea what any of them mean and has been asked to make a presentation to a major client.
No one has made this much of an arse of himself in years. Is that it? This was complacency. What planet was she living on? Where were all the bright new shiny announcements he had come prepared to rubbish?
Bless. You’ve got to love Mel. A national treasurer. The shadow chancellor who was the only person in parliament not to realise Reeves had never been planning to say anything. Nothing had been her end goal. It’s possible he may have realised his mistake moments before the end. His face a picture of despair.
Kind Rachel might have felt sorry for him. We got cruel Rachel. This was too good an opportunity to pass up. Wasn’t he rather wishing Kemi had replied instead of him? You bet he was.
Worst of all, he and the Tories were an irrelevance. Nobody was listening to them, no one was voting for them. It would be years – if ever – before the country gave them another hearing. What they had done to the economy was not just gross incompetence. It was a moral failing. Some Tories have already privately accepted this. Just not Kemi. Or Mel.
There was plenty of cross-chat about the state of Reform. Nigel Farage wasn’t there. He never is when it isn’t about him. Robert Jenrick has taken to wearing glasses in the chamber. He thinks they make him look brighter.
Honest Bob looked thoroughly put out at being the subject of countless drive-bys of Tory reject. His self-love bubbled over. The chancellor had done nothing. Then neither had he in 10 years as a Tory MP. At least you could say Reeves was trying. Jenrick’s CV is a catalogue of failure. It’s only a matter of time before he crashes and burns. But Reform think he is the best in class.
That just left the Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis to negotiate. No problem there. Reeves hadn’t said anything much for them to quibble over. Job done. On days like these, a problem delayed is one you bank as a win.
