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QUENTIN LETTS: Rachel Reeves did much forced smiling like someone who has just swallowed a dicky kipper By Quentin Letts for the Daily Mail Published: 17:11 EDT, 29 October 2024 | Updated: 17:23 EDT, 29 October 2024 e-mail View comments On June 30, 1916, the eve of the Battle of the Somme, General Haig reported that 'the men are in splendid spirits'. The next day was a slaughter. Here on the Westminster Front last night all seemed quiet enough.
Here and there a glow of Woodbine tip could be seen. On the breeze came a lilt of When This Lousy War Is Over as the soldiers checked their kit and wrote letters home. Labour MPs know that today could be murderous.
Not that you admit that. 'Dear Mum and Mabel, the lads are in cracking form and yesterday we had Bovril toast.' In an answer to Sir Ashley Fox (pictured in Parliament today) Rachel Reeves laughingly reflected that the Labour manifesto, acres of which have now been abandoned, was successful in winning the party seats in the South-West Rachel Reeves, who will tomorrow lead her troops over the top, conducted a tour of the lines.
That is to say, she attended Treasury questions. Nobody was really concentrating on the minute detail. It was too late to alter anything.
The howitzers were in place and Field Marshal Starmer had polished his binoculars. The sole task for General Reeves on this eve-of-budget foray was to impart confidence and instil courage. In this she was only partly successful.
Was that the sound of machine guns? Actually, no. It was Ms Reeves's voice, worryingly more staccato than normal. The Chancellor sounded a bag of nerves.
She did much forced smiling. People do that when they have swallowed a dicky kipper and sense that the kaolin-morphine may not completely have cemented the lower passages. Ms Reeves was accompanied by her staff officers.
These included the Treasury Chief Secretary, Darren Jones, a slender, urbane fellow who in a 1950s film would have been played by Richard Wattis Ms Reeves gabbled some formulaic abuse of the much-bombarded Conservatives. She crowed about the Government's numerical supremacy. In an answer to Sir Ashley Fox (Con, Bridgwater) she laughingly reflected that the Labour manifesto, acres of which have now been abandoned, was successful in winning the party seats in the South-West.
In a way her honesty was commendable. She was basically saying: 'We lied and it worked.' General Reeves was accompanied by her staff officers.
These included the Treasury Chief Secretary, Darren Jones, a slender, urbane fellow who in a 1950s film would have been played by Richard Wattis. Also on parade was the exchequer secretary James Murray (mortuary attendant), economic secretary Tulip Siddiq (almost invisible under her tin helmet) and Emma Reynolds, parliamentary secretary (likeable, ergo expendable). As high-commands go they were not the most inspiring.
A few of the troops had been briefed by the NCOs, or Whips, to ask loyal questions. Labour's Joe Morris, the Hexham mumbler, stood at his normal slouch, hand in pocket, to maffle something about how 'we must reset the foundations of our economy'. Did the Chancellor agree with him? Amazingly, given that mumbler Morris was echoing her own slogan, she did.
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer meets with Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer days before the first budget of the new Labour government tomorrow Josh Simons (Lab, Makerfield), a prize little suck-up, implored ministers to tell him more about their wonderful plans to boost long-term investment. The implausibility of all this greasing reached a peak when that dull cabbage Marie Rimmer started spouting wealth-ownership statistics. Rimmer the human calculator! Respite from the sycophancy came when Ben Coleman (Lab, Chelsea & Fulham) suggested closer involvement with the EU, which is naturally what Labour MPs long for but is officially regarded as Not Helpful To Keir.
Read More Chancellor proudly poses for Budget prep pic in No11 with photo of ex-Communist education minister Mr Coleman is wonderfully posh, his timbre as rich as lobster thermidor. That voice is testament to the gastronomic delights of London SW3. What was Fusilier Coleman doing here in the trenches? He should be at general headquarters at the Chateau de Beaurepaire where his food-tasting skills might be put to proper use.
A cabinet officer minister, Nick Thomas-Symonds, was later obliged to come to the despatch box to defend the government from charges that it had not told the Commons first about big policy changes. Mr Thomas-Symonds put up a sustained barrage. As he blasted away it was evident that he had developed a repeated double-blink and a shoulder-and-neck spasm, such as suffered by Mr Mackay in the TV comedy Porridge, and indeed by the former Home Secretary John Reid.
When senior officers start twitching it may be a sign that the Big Push is not entirely running to plan. Labour Rachel Reeves Share or comment on this article: QUENTIN LETTS: Rachel Reeves did much forced smiling like someone who has just swallowed a dicky kipper e-mail Add comment More top stories.
