End of a Disastrous Partnership
The downfall of Sir Keir Starmer also spells the end of his partnership with Chancellor Rachel Reeves, one of the worst double acts in modern politics. They operated together for less than two years, but during that time managed to inflict immense damage on the British economy and the credibility of the Government.
Before Reeves became Chancellor, she was regularly tipped as a future Prime Minister, but high office exposed her inadequacies. She had neither economic sense nor political acumen. Tellingly, the most memorable image of her troubled reign was of her openly sobbing on the front-bench, overwhelmed by the pressures of responsibility.
Deceit and Contradiction
Despite that lachrymose performance, Reeves always liked to portray herself as the “Iron Chancellor”, ready to take tough decisions in the national interest. That was part of a pattern of deceit and contradiction that has run through her career. She claimed her priority was growth, but she devastated the labour market with her massive hike in employers’ national insurance.
She posed as the guardian of fiscal rectitude, but presided over record-borrowing. She trumpeted her integrity but was regularly embroiled in scandals, like her letting of a London property without acquiring the necessary landlord’s statutory licence.
Serial Peddler of Delusions
In truth, she was a serial peddler of delusions. Her exaggeration of the black holes in the public finances to justify tax increases was matched by her embellishments to her CV to give herself more authority. In 2023, her publication of a book about female economists led to widespread accusations of plagiarism. In the richest of ironies, the book’s theme was the injustice of not giving women credit for their original work. Starmer should have sacked her after the flop of her first Budget.
