These were the Tweets I put out during Rachel Reeves' speech at the Labour Party conference today. Read from the bottom upwards:
This was a smug speech by a smug Chancellor that said nothing new or of benefit to anyone.
As I have said, this is a Labour government without a narrative, and it was clear from the looks on the faces of those in the conference hall that they knew this.
Ed Miliband looked to be in despair.
Even Wes Streting looked worried.
How can a person of such limited vision have reached such high office without any idea of what to do?
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
What can be said it’s very clearly the Laboured Party these days! Hardly any of the policies announced have been thought through with any clarity!
From a comment in the Guardian:-
“In France I understand that the government looks at your tax return to see what your income is. If it’s below a threshold shown by what tax you pay or don’t they then make a payment up to €250 direct to your chosen energy supplier. No need for the individual to apply.”
Clearly beyond Starmer’s and Reeves’s mental capabilities to come up with something similar in regard to the WFA.
“How can a person of such limited vision have reached such high office without any idea of what to do?”
By joining the Labour Party*?
* Look at the CV, tick the antiquated neoliberal boxes. Job done.
48% of Labour voters would now consider voting for another party:-
https://labourlist.org/2024/09/labour-poll-conference-2024-savanta-labourlist-event/
Surprise! Surprise!
A platituindous pile of piffle – as someone surely once said – however, laced with ritual genuflections to “Keir’s party” etc. balanced by a steadily rising crescendo of self-promotion – “the Britain that I believe in” (pause for adulation/applause). Then…. jaw-droppingly, despite the WFA steal, the quickly slipped-in “exploitative” zero-hours qualification and exaggerated guff on planning …. they cheered!
Cheered – what? There was almost nothing that could be ‘fact-checked’ – except two numbers.
First, the one picked on by you – tax inspectors and second, the projection of what the economy would have grown by if the Tories had matched the OECD growth average during their years in office. The first you have exposed. Her ‘new’ regime would in pure numbers be no more than reaching 71% of what the previous Labour government had available in 2005. On the second, even if the figures given are accurate, one of the major causes of this impoverished performance by the Tories – arguably the biggest of the lot – was never confronted, namely Brexit – which her vaunted Keir and his party have no plans for reversing.
Worse still – Reeves doubled down on two fundamental untruths; first, that there is only taxpayers’ money which she can spend and second, that in the face of the ‘black hole’ there “simply isn’t any money”. She is misrepresenting her attack on tax avoidance/evasion; her elision of Brexit is a shifty evasion of the truth and her characterisation of money is either dishonest or stupid – or possibly both. It seems that she has nothing at all to look smug about.
Thanks
The man handling of the young man, protesting arms to Israel, was disgusting. He was removed from the hall by the neck and Reeves’ response:
“This is a changed Labour Party. A Labour Party that represents working people, not a party of protest”. I doubt they represent anyone but themselves.
She disgusts me as does her boss, Starmer. They are vile creatures.
I was appalled
Just when you think Labour leaders can’t shock you any more Reeves comes out with this. Without protest movements there would never have been social progress or a Labour party, We would still be living in a feudal system – with serfs and overlords. Though the way things are going we will be living in that system before the end of the century.
Much to agree with
Harold Wilson basically said that Labour is nothing if not a party of protest.
Look – this has been going on in America for years.
Think Larry Summers.
Think Timothy Geithner.
Think Ben Bernanke.
It’s now arrived here – if not before.
This is big money paying and supporting public figures to say and do ridiculous and absurd things to protect their self interests.
That’s why Reeves has the confidence to smile – she has already made it and will be looked after no matter what. Her future is assured.
The person whose comeuppance I’m am hankering for is one Andrew Bailey – God on Earth himself, it seems. He has taken absurdity to a new level and someone whom I would love to sack twice, just so I could enjoy it a second time.
But he gets away with it. Why? Because no one goes and looks at the 1997 Act and sees that the government is no tail of the BoE – it is actually the other way around. But who is looking and telling us about this, other than on this blog?
No one. This is how it works. They’ve been doing this in the States for years.
Thank you for the list of those about to be – sorry, *screwed*.
Paraphrasing Rachel Reeves; Scotland’s future isn’t built in Scotland………. and it shows.
rachel reeves , the womans not for learning .
she would love to be remembered in a thatcheresque way , but thats never going to happen .
My worry about Starmer has always been three-fold: a complete lack of any moral core to use as a yardstick for his policies; a total lack of authenticity, and a craving for power. If ever there was an example of a weak, unimaginative man who is also an authoritarian, it is Starmer. Reeves was therefore a good choice by Starmer as his Chancellor – dull but strident; credentials which feed into his own personal agenda, and no threat to his position. (And a speaking voice which is so unmodulated that she actually sounds vocally disabled)
It is, of course, a waste of time any of us saying we could see this coming. No one listened then, and “I told you so” never won any hearts. It just further entrenches people, because no one likes to admit they’ve been had.
Twitter is alive with anti-Starmer/Reeves vitriol, and I’m not at all surprised. On LBC yesterday I said that millions are outraged by the blatant hypocrisy and unfeeling betrayals by Starmer/Reeves. That Freebiegate, like Partgate, has become the story. That donations and gifts buy ACCESS to decision makers. That the optics are dire and Starmer is inept. The host – one Clare Foges, a Tory stooge – told me that lobbying and giving donations and gifts to politicians makes no difference, and isn’t effective, yet in the same breath said it was a multi million pound business.
It’s a bloody mess. If Starmer’s and Reeves’ objective is to be a one term Government having trashed the Labour brand, and keep (real) Labour out of power for 20 years, they couldn’t be doing a better job.
Are you sure you have the name of the UK’s finance minster right? – surely Osreeves?
(one has a sense of deja vu – two imbeciles, equally incompetant but separated by 14 years in the same job – perhaps it’s something in the Uk water).
@Mike Parr
“…perhaps it’s something in the Uk water).”
Hmmm…. and we all know what that is.
If it’s not actually in our drinking water yet it probably soon will be.
“My ambitions know no boundaries”
Et tu Brute ?
Reeves got the job because she is a product of BofE and Treasury and would appeal to sections of the finance world and Tory voters.
Unfortunately she is just that product and that is all that she knows. Osborne lite.
In this blog there is much talk about the Single Transferable Party which is defined as the embeddment of Neoliberalism in British society. The term Neoliberalism, however, is vague for many voters. Surely the Labour Party leadership’s behaviour in regard to the acceptance of gifts (Freebiegate) and the Winter Fuel Allowance should have us simply recognising that the Single Transferable Party’s defining characteristic is that it’s led by SAD politicians – Selfish And Devious.
I managed to get around to watching her performance and was appalled at just how ‘plastic’ she was?
Her smiling was some sort of advisor advised ‘rictus’ – the fake choreographed cuddle with her sister on the platform was …oh dear……it was theatre wasn’t it – brought to you by the markets who always want to screw us with a smile on their face?
Yes, theatre it was.
I will say this though. I did not get a sense of someone who was interested in power Richard. The fact that she did as she was told (albeit I think badly) by her handlers points to lower motivations – survival and money.
Interesting. My wife thought the smile was nervous fear.
Might be worth getting a psychologist that is good on “tells” to analyse the erm… performance. Indeed might be useful to apply the same to Starmer and the rest of his motley crew.
@Mike Parr. May I offer my services?? Not only did I do psychology and computing at Uni, plus psychotherapy, I’m also a pretty competent poker player. Spotting “tells” has won me games before now……
Its not just you Richard.
The headline on the front cover of the NEW Statesman was : What’s the Story? Labour are in power…But we still don’t know how they want to use it.
We will have to wait for her Budget next month
Perhaps there will be a big reveal ?
She is smirking as though she knows something no one else does.
Perhaps Hannah can tell us whether she is bluffing.
[…] I reposted here the Tweets I published during Rachel Reeves' Labour conference speech yesterday. […]