QUENTIN LETTS: Reeves was negativity in a plum suit...

As a taxpayer, patriot and (gulp) debtor, I need Rachel Reeves to succeed as Chancellor of the Exchequer. So do most of us.

Alas, it does not seem to be happening. Her Budget whacked growth and jobs. Retail figures are bad, car-makers are on the skids and the housing market has lockjaw.

Cockpit klaxons are honking but pilot Reeves sits there obtund and torpid. It is as if horror at her own mistakes has paralysed her.

Treasury questions brought evidence that a rising number of Labour MPs fear things are going awry. Attendance on the government benches was slight for a party with such a vast and new majority. 

Only a handful of those MPs were content to act as the Chancellor’s cheerleaders. Graeme Downie (Lab, Dunfermline & Dollar) acted the goat and Torsten Bell (Lab, Swansea W) goofed around as his underling. 

Jacob Collier (Lab, Burton & Uttoxeter) and Tristan Osborne (Lab, Chatham & Aylesford) did some pro-Reeves heckling. Thunderbirds puppet Mark Sewards (Lab, Leeds SW & Morley) engaged in more boot-licking.

The Chancellor’s parliamentary aide Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) did his usual impression of Churchill the insurance dog. That is part of his official function.

Yet his colleague Imogen Walker (Hamilton & Clyde Valley) contained any enthusiasm she felt. Ms Walker is married to Morgan McSweeney, the ferocious, bearded liegeman of Brian Boru who is Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff. 

In recent days No 10 has not been entirely supportive of the Chancellor, disowning the ‘no more taxes’ pledge she made to the CBI.

Conservatives yesterday invited her to repeat that promise. She would not do so. Instead she said it would not be necessary to ‘repeat a Budget like that one’. This was possibly a disguised way of saying: ‘I don’t intend to repeat that disaster.’

Ms Reeves may be among her own doubters. Sitting there she looked miserable, gaunt, a headache on two legs. There is none of the bombast of Gordon Brown or sly cleverness of George Osborne. She was a cavernous-eyed automaton spouting pre-cooked answers.

Weight has fallen off her. The only time she showed much spark was when she attacked the Tories over Covid fraud allegations. And the only time she gave a convincing smile? She thought she had lost her pen and found it was under her bottom. She shot her Chief Secretary Darren Jones an ain’t-I-a-clot chuckle.

For the rest of the hour’s session she was negativity in a plum suit. What happened to the elixir, the octane, the aphrodisiac of power? She was more like someone who had swallowed too much cod liver oil. 

Exchequer Secretary James Murray was the most competitive of the ministers. There may be a whiff of formaldehyde when he is at the despatch box – Mr Murray is the one who resembles a mortuary attendant – but he at least sets out an intellectual case, and with some grit.

He is nobody’s fool. With each week one feels less confident saying that about Mr Jones, a hapless media performer and, like the Chancellor, over-fond of slogans.

Replying to a Tory question about National Insurance he managed, in one sentence, to cram in the cliches about ‘wiping the slate clean, getting a grip on public spending, fixing the foundations and delivering for working people’. Like a double Mars Bar, it was too much.

Rupert Lowe (Ref, Great Yarmouth) suggested that some public services were wasting money. ‘No they’re not!’ shouted Alex Sobel (Lab, Leeds C & Headingley), laughing hard at his Wildean repartee.

Speaker Hoyle twice felt obliged to upbraid Ms Reeves for over-long answers. The Chancellor blinked miserably. I feared we might almost have tears.

When Josh Babarinde (Lib Dem, Eastbourne) mentioned public swimming baths, Ms Reeves said dully that it was ‘important all children learn to swim, especially in our coastal communities’.

It is also important that all ministers, especially in our Treasury communities, learn to swim in parliamentary debate. At present Rachel Reeves needs someone to throw her a rubber ring.