QUENTIN LETTS: Reeves ignored the Tories’ impertinence… nothing was going to get in the way in which of that haircut
Rachel Reeves, in powder blue, sashayed in one pace behind the most disliked prime minister in memory. Her own approval ratings are at Buster Crabbe depths. The economy? Whiffy as a slice of Ross-shire Minger.
Not that you would have guessed that from her catwalk gait. She flicked her head to aerate a newly frou-frou’d barnet (a feathered lob). Fruity self-pleasure curled on her lips. She spotted friends in the gallery and coo-eed.
Beside her sat Sir Keir, ghostly and scraped-back, the walking corpse. Other Cabinet ministers included scary Bridget Phillipson, the usual hive of scowls, and the Treasury’s James Murray, mortuary attendant manque.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander rubbed a tired face. Deputy PM David Lammy massaged a stiff knee. But Ms Reeves, despite a cold, thought everything fabuloso.
Beforehand, behind the Speaker’s chair, she had looked expressionless but once she stepped front-of-house she went all spangly. TV cameras do this to her. She adores the attention.
‘We now come to the Spring forecast,’ boomed Speaker Hoyle. ‘I call the Chancellor of the Exchequer.’ Her first words – ‘this Government has the right economic plan for our country’ – were delivered with a stretched smile. Cue hyena laughter from the Opposition and delight from her own side.
Thus it continued. With the Government’s large majority, the weight of Labour bodies inevitably meant there was far more cheering than the opposite.
Any Martian visitor would have thought the Starmer Government had achieved years of low-tax, high-employment prosperity.
The raw statistics, suggesting the opposite, were skipped over in a few nonchalant phrases. Ms Reeves, briskly: ‘I’m not satisfied yet with these forecasts.’
Any Martian visitor would have thought the Starmer Government had achieved years of low-tax, high-employment prosperity, writes Quentin Letts
A Tory voice: ‘Nor are we!’ She ignored that impertinence. She ignored everything. Nothing was going to get in the way of that hairdo.
Most of the 25-minute statement was bombastic politics. The economy was going swimmingly. Ms Reeves was breaking with ‘the failed ideas of the past’, ‘fixing welfare’ and had ‘restored stability’. The more she said it, the more she seemed to believe it.
Her voice became increasingly glottal-stoppy and stentorian. She rubbished the Tories – ‘irrelevant’. Reform were ‘failed Tory politicians’.
She poohpoohed the Lib Dems and Greens. ‘I will take no lectures! I’ve been making the big choices, taking on the vested interests! I have the right plan!’ No one else had anything of value to suggest.
There was a delicious balls-up when she tried to say ‘the change that we promised’ and it plopped out as ‘the promise that we changed’. Oops. Sir Keir’s buttocks clenched before she corrected her blooper.
The statement’s response from Sir Mel Stride, Shadow Chancellor, was blown off deck by Labour hecklers.
Sir Mel’s voice, at best a lightish hock, stood no chance against this wall of disdain.
He tried to squeak that Ms Reeves was living on another planet and he kept shaking his right hand in the air. It just looked as if he had been stung by a wasp.
Labour backbenchers laughed and bellowed. Sean Woodcock (Banbury) fiddled with his nose and chin in a bid to control his hysteria.
Speaker Hoyle’s calls for order were ignored by David Burton-Sampson (Southend W), Baggy Shanker (Derby S), Richard Quigley (Isle of Wight W) and Sadik Al-Hassan (N Somerset), all of them yelling and giggling. Sir Mel suggested cutting public spending.
That celebrated man of letters Peregrine ‘Perran’ Moon (Camborne & Redruth) opened his mouth as wide as a roll-on-roll-off ferry’s bows and emitted some enormous burp of contempt.
The Lib Dems’ Daisy Cooper tried asking about youngsters’ prospects. Ms Reeves airily retorted with something about the Erasmus scheme. David Reed (Con, Exmouth) asked a reasonable-sounding question about student fees.
Ms Reeves just snarled triumphalist insults and rolled her eyes. Carla Lockhart (DUP, Upper Bann) was treated with dismissive sarcasm.
In the outside world, Iran burned, stocks fell and oil prices rose. And in a week when MPs were given a 5 per cent pay rise, the House adjourned before 4pm.
