It is genuinely astonishing that Rachel Reeves isn’t accompanied by the Benny Hill theme at all times. Her ability to harvest the fruit of incompetence is without compare. She is the Nellie Melba of cock-ups, an anti-Midas in a pantsuit and a Lego hairpiece. Really, those of us who take joy from seeing a disaster artist hone their craft ought to have thrown bouquets at her from the gallery.
Today was a real tour de force. Having trailed for weeks that this would be the Budget that restored her reputation, Reeves managed only to enhance her reputation… for screwing things up. Of course there were some excellent supporting performances; a particular mention has to go to the Office for Budget Responsibility, which hilariously is supposed to keep the UK’s fiscal policy announcements credible. Obviously, they’re a shambles, but then which arm of the comedic and decaying British state isn’t? We’re probably only ever a couple of resignations away from Mr Tumble becoming the Rail Ombudsman.
Anyway, the OBR, hothouse of credibility that it is, managed to release its response to the Budget before Playmobil Rach had even stood up. So the news had passed to her – via the medium of whichever hand puppet or junior treasury minister it is that civil servants use to break her bad news – by the time she stood up to tell the House what everyone now knew anyway. She looked shell-shocked. In the background Yakety Sax played softly in the minor key.
Labour MPs had clearly been briefed to turn up and cheer
First, the Niagara-level leaking this year had earned the government a ticking off from Deputy Speaker Nus Ghani, who’d come dressed as a ticket inspector on a suburban railway. The Chancellor pulled her best ‘wot me, guv?’ face and rolled her eyes a couple of times. The allergy to scrutiny which the Prime Minister suffers from is clearly catching in this government. Being reminded that she is leakier than a broken sieve clearly riled the Chancellor, who presumably believes herself to be above the rules for other people. Just like she thought she was above the rules for renting out her house.
Sitting near the Chancellor was the man who actually wrote much of the Budget, Torsten Bell. End-of-the-pier entertainers would have had a field day with this unlikely duo. The petite, Playmobil-headed woman and the lanky, smug man. Reavis and Butt-Head. Bell spent most of the Budget looking supremely self-satisfied, like a chihuahua who’d made a mess on the carpet and was proud of it.
As she announced the string of stealth taxes, raids on pension contributions and other punitive measures, Reeves seemed to settle into her role. Truly she has the perfect moniker, the Reeve being the miserable tax collector of the mediaeval world. Yet even the Domesday Book looks like an exercise in indulgent and liberal government compared to the cynical measures announced today.
There was the by-now obligatory section blaming Liz Truss and everyone else for her own decisions. She insisted there would be ‘no return to Tory austerity’ – as long as you’re a recipient of state largesse, that is. If you’re a productive taxpayer, then it’s a bit like Narnia before Aslan turns up; always winter and never Christmas. The Chancellor droned on about how much her government cared about savers and entrepreneurs, right before rinsing them. Buried within the small print was the detail that graduates face the double whammy of higher income tax and higher repayments on their student loans. For the young and ambitious, the options seem to be either: get on benefits or emigrate. Though I was relieved to hear that the Chancellor was only ‘asking’ people to contribute more. Presumably, we can just say no?
Labour MPs had clearly been briefed to turn up and cheer. The only thing most really did this for was the cynical decision to scrap the two-child benefit cap, a bone thrown to rebels to try and get them to back her. A cherry on top of the cowpat. But a special mention must go to a few of the keener Starmerite flunkies who went above and beyond the call of duty. Rugby MP John Slinger and Deirdre Costigan of Ealing Southall waved their order papers around maniacally. I lost count of how many ‘hear, hears’ there were from Paisley MP Johanna Baxter, who approaches her backbencher role with the air of the delegate last to stop clapping at a meeting of Stalin’s Politburo. (One wonders what the equivalent of being liquidated by the Prime Minister would be? Sent to an Adolescence gulag? Forced to spend an evening with him up the Arsenal?)
The Chancellor, who had come dressed as a character from Flambards, did manage some pluck in the face of rowdy opposition from the Tories. ‘I’m happy for them to shout as much as they like as long as they do it from the opposition benches where they can’t cause any more damage.’ No, Rachel, that is indisputably your job now.
Despite the Chancellor looking like a wet weekend in Pyongyang, Kemi Badenoch did not spare the rod. She accused Reeves of ‘wallowing in self-pity’. Making reference to Reeves’s much-vaunted claim that people were mean about her Budget because she was a woman, the Leader of the Opposition told her ‘woman to woman’ that ‘people out there aren’t complaining because she is female, they’re complaining because she is utterly incompetent.’ Badenoch spat out these words with real venom. As Starmer whispered something to Reeves, the Leader of the Opposition sarcastically asked Reeves if the PM was ‘mansplaining’. Sir Keir turned puce. Yvette Cooper looked like she’d been sucking on a lemon. Reeves could only blink. You rarely see such brutality, or such obvious job satisfaction, on display in the House of Commons.
Ms Badenoch also mentioned the farmers who’d brought their tractors to Westminster in protest, though their pleas had once again fallen on deaf ears. Therein lies the genuine tragedy of Rachel Reeves: as comical as her self-delusion is, as farcical as her policies are, there are real people paying the price.
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