It’s Budget day and, as Rachel Reeves’s luck would have it, the OBR report she was expected to reveal today was published online, er, ahead of her fiscal statement. Consequently her opponents had a 30-minute heads up to read over the details and bolster their response to the Chancellor’s plans. But it wasn’t just her policies Tory leader Kemi Badenoch went after today – the Conservative MP’s attacks got pretty personal…
Badenoch blasted Reeves’s statement as an ‘exercise in self-delusion’, before mocking the Chancellor over a recent series of interviews in which she claimed she was fed up of being ‘mansplained’ too. In a quite stunning evisceration, Badenoch tore into a rather uncomfortable looking Reeves:
Madam Deputy Speaker, let me explain to the Chancellor. Woman to woman. People out there aren’t complaining because she’s female. They’re complaining because she is utterly incompetent. Real equality means being held to the same standard as everyone else. It means being judged on results. Take her bright idea. The Office for Value for Money. It’s been closed down because it didn’t save a penny. In fact, it cost the taxpayer £1.6 million. You couldn’t make this stuff up. Madam Deputy Speaker, I’ve identified a way to save taxpayers huge amounts of money by sacking just one person. The woman sitting opposite.
Ouch. The Tory leader continued:
Madam Deputy speaker. She says she wants people to respect her. Respect is earned. She told Labour MPs this week: I’ll show the media, I’ll show the Tories, I will not let them beat me. Show us what? Making stuff up at the despatch box, incompetence, chaos and the highest tax burden in history. She said to them, Madam Deputy Speaker, I’ll be there on Wednesday. I’ll be there next year, and I’ll be back the year after that. God help us. She is spineless, shameless and completely aimless.
Burn…
Watch the clip here:
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