Any man with a white van knows Rachel Reeves isn’t up to the job.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves isn’t up to the job, but Ed Miliband would be worse (Image: Getty)
Reeves is a disaster and the country knows it. She can’t even nip into a petrol station without being heckled. She’s attacked farmers, small businesses, pensions, inheritances, savings and investments, while losing control of welfare. The result? Britain is buckling under the highest tax burden ever, growth has stalled and unemployment is rocketing. This week she confirmed her economic illiteracy by floating plans to slap price controls on supermarket basics. And her next brainwave was lampooned as childish.
Yet incredibly, almost everybody else in the Labour Party would be an even bigger flop. Especially the front runner to replace her as chancellor if PM Keir Starmer is forced out. Incredibly, it’s Ed Miliband. While she’s simply incompetent, he’s an out-and-out political nut job. He’s been a disaster as energy secretary, and would be a total nightmare as chancellor. Rachel Reeves knows it. And she’s fighting back
Reeves has seen how Miliband operates at close quarters. She desperately tried to reverse his lunatic decision to block future North Sea oil and gas production, but lost. Miliband is simply too powerful, despite the insanity of his accelerated net zero crusade. Or maybe because of it. The left do love their loons.
Britain is paying a huge price for his craziness. Energy bills are soaring. Industry is collapsing. We’re paying wind farms billions not to produce electricity. And Britain would rather import energy from blood-soaked Russian dictator Vladimir Putin than extract it from our own waters. Russian oil good, British oil bad. It’s the very definition of madness.
But madness is Miliband’s political superpower. Nobody in their right mind picks a fight with a fanatic, because they’ve got nothing to lose. So he wins every time.
Starmer tried to fire him. Then saw the crazed glint in his eye and backed down. Reeves gave up on her North Sea battle. But there’s another fight she’s definitely up for, because her political life is at stake. The gloves are off and Reeves is coming out swinging at Red Ed.
Labour politicians are hustling for jobs under Andy Burnham. Ed Miliband looks like a shoo-in as chancellor. That prospect should terrify anybody with a basic understanding of economics.
Almost nobody in the entire Labour Party understands finance. If they did, they wouldn’t have joined in the first place. In this intellectual wasteland, Miliband has positioned himself as some kind of economic guru. Reeves and her allies are desperately trying to alert Burnham to the truth.
One is now telling anyone who’ll listen that Miliband is a “dogmatic” left-winger who would be a “total disaster” as Chancellor. Which is absolutely spot-on.
Miliband has already shown he’ll press ahead with his dogma regardless of the damage. As chancellor, he’d be catastrophic.
If Ed so much as strolled past Number 11, bond yields would rise. If he got the keys, they’d go through the roof. Reeves knows that, and she wants Burnham to know it too. Let’s hope he listens. Otherwise madness will ensue.