Are Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves actually secretly pleased to have been publicly humiliated by their own backbenchers? A cynic might conclude this was so.
Once upon a time, a Premier and a Chancellor whose most vital economic plans were brutally, publicly destroyed by their own MPs would have at least considered resignation.
It seems that nowadays it is more than their jobs are worth to resign. They propose to carry on in their well-paid posts, and to be driven about with their red boxes in Government cars, even though they no longer have the confidence of their party and cannot get their most crucial plans through Parliament.
It was surely Sir Keir who ought to have been weeping on Wednesday. But no. A very odd thing has happened. Government ministers have been liberated from their own manifesto pledges by their own startling incompetence.
By losing the battle to cut welfare payments, they have now been released from all their previous promises about tax. In fact, they are pretty much compelled to increase tax, something which they probably always wanted to do anyway, but had to promise not to do to get elected.
Asked by the pro-Labour Guardian newspaper whether she was prepared to rule out tax rises in the autumn, Ms Reeves replied: ‘I’m not going to because it would be irresponsible for a Chancellor to do that.’ If this was not so bitter, and if the price to be paid was not so high, it would be funny. Suddenly it has become ‘irresponsible’ to stand by a solemn, undoubted promise, made in letters of fire in the Labour manifesto a year ago.
Having pretended to be hampered by a fictional black hole left by the Tories, Ms Reeves has now been presented with a real black hole, very wide and deep, by the Parliamentary Labour Party
Once upon a time, a Premier and a Chancellor whose most vital economic plans were brutally, publicly destroyed by their own MPs would have at least considered resignation. Pictured: Starmer and Reeves at the launch of the Government’s 10-year health plan
It was surely Sir Keir who ought to have been weeping on Wednesday. But no. A very odd thing has happened. Government ministers have been liberated from their own manifesto pledges by their own startling incompetence
There it was, on page 19: ‘Labour will not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase National Insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of Income Tax, or VAT.’
Now, they will have to break at least part of this promise, or they will not be able to find the huge sums they will need to balance the national books.
Having pretended to be hampered by a fictional black hole left by the Tories, Ms Reeves has now been presented with a real black hole, very wide and deep, by the Parliamentary Labour Party.
This was bound to happen. Those who nowadays obtain nomination as Labour candidates are pretty unlikely to be moderates. But it has taken place surprisingly early in the life of the Starmer Government, because that Government is so badly run. The Labour leadership is simultaneously afraid of Nigel Farage and the voters he threatens to take away, and of Jeremy Corbyn and the voters – and activists – his new movement may seduce.
What a terrible pity it is that the Opposition is currently so weak, and that so many voters were sweet-talked into complacency about the possibility of a Starmer administration a year ago.
Even so, this is what has happened. The price must now be paid, probably in ways which will damage the economy as much as Ms Reeves’s foolish increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions. This new mess cannot be avoided.
But we do not need any more of this. This week should be the turning point, when the voters decide that they made a mistake by choosing this Government and we start the long march towards replacing it with a competent, responsible administration.
