I was in the room when Rachel Reeves made history - but all I felt was Deja Vu
Rachel Reeves broke new ground today as she made her first major speech as Chancellor - the first woman ever to do so.
A historic moment, undoubtedly.
But despite the repeated promises of “change", history repeated itself as the Labour government’s chief bean-counter had her big moment.
First came the blame game.
I was at the same press conference 14 years ago when the Coalition’s Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David Laws, produced the infamous “no money” note left by his predecessor, Labour’s Liam Byrne.
Then-Chancellor George Osborne and Prime Minister David Cameron made hay, while a rudderless opposition chose its next leader.
The seed was sowed that Labour and Gordon Brown were to blame for “crashing” the economy.
The message stuck.
Ms Reeves repeated the same blame game, albeit with no props, saying she had inherited a dire mess from the Conservatives.
In just 72 hours, a figure she repeated at least a dozen times, the Chancellor said she had lifted the bonnet and didn’t like what she saw.
Next up was her desire to get the economy firing again.
To be fair, this is a trope trotted out by every man that has held the second most important position in government since Ms Reeves was born 45-years ago.
Unsurprisingly, she failed to mention all the good work done by two former Chancellor’s - Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt - to help stabilise the economy in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the disastrous budget of another incumbent of the top Treasury job - Kwasi Kwarteng.
Undaunted, Ms Reeves rolled out another perennial promise, to build at least 300,000 new homes a year.
The last time this was achieved was in 1977 - two years before Ms Reeves was born.
Every government from James Callaghan’s to Mr Sunak’s has tried and failed to meet the target.
Ms Reeves certainly means business and it’s apparent she wants to get cracking straight away.
Her no-nonsense press conference, in an elaborately columned Treasury room, left the watching media, business leaders and Cabinet members in no doubt about that.
Ultimately, she will be judged by numbers.
72-hours in and she says she is already “getting on with delivering”.