Rachel Reeves could – arguably should – have been at the Commons despatch box to answer questions about her fiscal rules. Instead we had Darren Jones, Treasury chief secretary.
Mr Jones is one of life’s assistant hotel managers. Never raises his voice. Smells faintly of geraniums. With his clean fingernails and corrugated hairdo he is normally rather good at handling complaints from shouty guests.
Even this suave under-strapper was some way off his best. He gabbled. Those youthful hands shook. He kept fiddling with his wedding ring and his courtesy frayed like used dental floss. There was, mind you, one respect in which his performance was a success: he did not start blubbing.
Supporters of the Chancellor will say Cabinet ministers never turn up for Opposition fishing expeditions. True. Yet, after last week’s lamentations from Ms Reeves and the financial markets’ twitchiness, this light-ish Monday afternoon event might have been a chance for her to reassert herself.
Has her nerve snapped? Is she still weepy? Was she worried she might say something injudicious and again make City graphs resemble Donald Trump’s autograph?
Sir Mel Stride, Shadow Chancellor, enjoyed his sport. ‘This is a Government divided, a Government wrecking the public finances,’ hollered Sir Mel.
There are not many Conservatives at Westminster nowadays but the life raft’s survivors look a lot perkier than they did a year ago. Or a month ago.
Darren Jones, Treasury chief secretary, is one of life’s assistant hotel managers
Rachel Reeves was not in the commons to answer questions about her fiscal rules, after she shed a tear on the benches last week
Mr Jones pushed out his jaw and said: ‘Liz Truss.’ That, in short, was his response to every sally from the Tories. ‘Liz Truss, Liz Truss, Liz Truss.’
It made Labour backbenchers feel a little less wretched. They could console themselves that they were not as bad as the Trussette. Except… they were!
Two Tories pointed out that borrowing costs under Starmer-Reeves are higher than they were under Truss-Kwarteng. This apparently came as news to Mr Jones.
One Labour MP referred to Ms Truss as ‘the previous prime minister’, as if Rishi Sunak had never existed. Perhaps they feared that Rishi and Jeremy Hunt might now be felt to have made a better fist of things than the nasal knight and Madame Waterworks.
At this stage in a parliament, you would expect a government to have impetus. You would expect it still to be talking about terrific new policies that would soon be introduced. What was striking about Mr Jones’s appearance was how there was almost none of that.
He was entirely defensive and backward-looking. ‘Liz Truss, Liz Truss.’ The great ship of state is becalmed. As in Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the decks are warping, seawater laps lifelessly at the bows and crew members are parched.
Labour MPs did not have enough to cheer. Nor did anyone, save two members of the Whips’ Office, turn up on the front bench to support Mr Jones.
‘Business confidence is rising,’ he insisted. It caused a certain amusement. ‘We’re not going to put the nation’s finances at risk,’ he averred. Tory voice: ‘You already have!’
There are not many Conservatives at Westminster nowadays but Sir Mel Stride, Shadow Chancellor, enjoyed his sport
Now Mr Jones was speaking of how Ms Reeves ‘updated the definition of debt’. This won such a yelp of Tory mirth, it could have been the canned laughter they used on The Flintstones.
Mr Jones bridled at that and snapped that the Tories had ‘no plans’. Well, no, they don’t. But that is a line of argument for year four in a parliament. At the start of year two, a minister should brim with his own shiny solutions.
Where is the impetus? To employ a different maritime analogy, motorboats need to keep whooshing forwards.
If they stop, the water-skier goes glug-glug-glug and all you smell is failure.
Warinder Juss (Lab, Wolverhampton West) cried: ‘This Government has had the courage to make the difficult decisions necessary!’ Joyous knee-slapping from HM’s Official Opposition.
The Lib Dems did not join this scoffing. Having sucked up to the Starmerites almost as much as dopey Brother Juss, they must be wondering if their dreams of coalition with Sir Keir will ever float.
Abandon ship?
