The chancellor is levelling with us about the pain to come. Is there anyone outside Planet Rachel who couldn’t see that truth two years ago?
T
his would actually have been quite an understandable day for Rachel Reeves to cry at work. “I’m really clear,” the chancellor told the CBI less than a year ago, “I’m not coming back with more borrowing or more taxes.” Can I shock you …? “We did wipe the slate clean,” she continued less than 12 months ago. “[We] put public finances and public services on a firm footing, and as a result we won’t have to do a budget like this ever again.” Again: can I shock you …?
So, then, to Reeves’s podium appearance from Downing Street this morning. Vibes-wise, it was like knowing you were going to be very incompetently mugged in three weeks’ time, but having to listen to a speech from the mugger about the context of it all. Or maybe a speech from an asteroid trying to get out in front of what people are going to say about it when it craters the West Midlands.
Reeves’s delivery is more wooden than the panelling behind her today, and has all the verve of being informed that we’re experiencing higher than normal call volumes. Your estimated wait time to the budget is 22 days. There were moments in this outing where it felt like the chancellor’s job had already been automated. She must have been absolutely unplayable on the complaints line at HBOS.
