DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Is Rachel Reeves softening us up for tax rises?
In her first major speech as Chancellor, Rachel Reeves began by giving herself a carte-blanche excuse for any future failings – or bringing in tax rises not included in her party's manifesto.
Labour had inherited, she claimed, the worst set of economic circumstances facing any incoming government since the Second World War.
Either through ignorance or selective amnesia, she neglected to mention one monumental exception.
When George Osborne took over the Treasury from the last Labour administration in 2010, the nation's finances were in tatters.
On Gordon Brown's watch the financial system collapsed and the British taxpayer was forced to bail out banks and building societies. Growth sank to minus 5 per cent.
Compared with the smoking wreck the Tories inherited from Gordon Brown's government, Ms Reeves has landed in a bed of roses
The main part of Ms Reeves' speech sketched out proposals to kick-start growth with a radical overhaul of the planning system
The crash wasn't entirely Mr Brown's fault, but his high-spending regime made its consequences far worse.
Chief Treasury Secretary Liam Byrne summed up the situation in a note left for his Tory successor which read: 'I'm afraid there's no money.'
Compared with that smoking wreck, Ms Reeves has landed in a bed of roses.
True, the last 14 years have been tough, first because of New Labour's toxic legacy, and more recently the pandemic and global energy crisis.
But having weathered those storms, the UK is growing faster than the rest of the G7, real wages are rising, and inflation is under control.
We are not in the economic wasteland Ms Reeves likes to pretend.
Yet she clearly intends to use such imagery to justify 'difficult decisions' and 'short-term pain' which lie ahead – again, potential code for tax rises.
The main part of her speech sketched out proposals to kick-start growth with a radical overhaul of the planning system.
There will be mandatory new home targets for councils, a review of the green belt with a view to releasing some of it for construction, and an end to the 'absurd' onshore wind farm ban.
Scope for local opposition will inevitably be curtailed.
The national target is to build an average of 300,000 homes over the next five years.
Just 69,000 more than were built last year, this increase is hardly likely to be the dramatic solution Ms Reeves hopes for.
The number is dwarfed by annual net migration of 685,000. If Labour really wants to solve the housing crisis, it should work to reduce that colossal influx. In the words of EM Forster: Only connect!
It's easy to attack government policy in opposition. But as Ms Reeves will soon discover, when you are in power, blaming yesterday's regime for today's problems washes for only so long.
She has just arrived at Number 11, so she's entitled to a short of period of triumphalism.
Once the honeymoon is over, however, she will be judged by actions, not rhetoric.
At sea on small boats
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper boasted how her new Border Security Command was going to 'smash the trafficking gangs' - just as the first boatload of migrants since the election slipped into Dover
Just as Home Secretary Yvette Cooper was bragging yesterday about how her new Border Security Command was going to 'smash the trafficking gangs', the first boatload of migrants since the election was slipping into Dover.
This is now Labour's problem and, after all the big talk, it will be expected to solve it.
Having scrapped the Rwanda scheme, its only strategy seems to be creating this beefed-up border force and hoping for a returns agreement with France, which has been requested before without success.
The Mail wishes Ms Cooper every success, but if she really thinks a new quango will be enough to deter the traffickers, she is guilty of epic self-delusion.
Migrants are now Labour's problem and, after all the big talk, it will be expected to solve it. Pictured: Migrants were escorted into Dover, Kent on Monday
