When Rachel Reeves doctored her CV to suggest she had been a leading economist at the Bank of England rather than merely a minor functionary, she may have thought it didn’t really matter.
No one was likely to notice and anyway, everyone tells the odd fib on their employment record to make them seem a bit more qualified than they are, don’t they? Where’s the harm?
She probably took a similar view when she was accused of plagiarising huge sections of other people’s work for her book on female economists and was alleged to have falsely claimed to have written papers for the renowned Journal of Political Economy.
But the problem with convincing herself these ‘little white lies’ were acceptable is that they have led to far bigger and blacker ones. Indeed, she seems to be descending into her own post-truth world.
The imaginary £22billion Tory black hole she claimed to have found when entering the Treasury. Her failure to buy a licence before letting her home even though she knew one was required.
And now the fattest lie of all (so far) – that she had no option but to launch a second crushing tax raid on the British people because of another huge shortfall in the public finances.
Thanks to the intervention of the Office for Budget Responsibility, we now know that was untrue. Far from the £20-30billion deficit Ms Reeves had implied she faced, the books showed a £4.2billion surplus.
So, she didn’t raise taxes by £26billion (on top of £40billion last October) because she had to, but because she chose to. And she chose to not for the good of the country but to appease her party’s Left, for whom high taxes and high spending are an addiction.
Her two budgets together represent a massive redistribution of wealth from work to welfare. No attempt to cut ballooning benefits, nothing to stimulate growth, nothing to incentivise graft or initiative. Just a charter for sloth.
When asked on Sky TV yesterday whether she had lied about the OBR’s numbers, it took the Chancellor two attempts to answer. Her first instinct was to obfuscate.
There are two obvious interpretations of that hesitancy. Either she lied but couldn’t admit it, or she wasn’t sure whether she had lied or not.
Such an ambiguous relationship with the truth would be troubling in anyone. In the keeper of the national purse, it’s extremely dangerous.
Trust and integrity may be old fashioned concepts to this slippery Labour government, but they matter; to the markets, to potential investors and to business, all of whom seek honesty and stability.
If the Chancellor loses their trust there are real-world consequences – higher borrowing rates, the flight of wealth and capital, rising unemployment and ultimately a poorer Britain.
She gave a show of defiance yesterday, but it’s over and she should go. The only reason Sir Keir Starmer is propping her up is that he knew about the OBR numbers yet still ‘signed off’ on the Budget. If she goes, the buzzards will soon be circling him. Some already are.
Both Starmer and Reeves bang on constantly about the legacy of Liz Truss and her mini-Budget as if it somehow absolves them from their own ineptitude.
But it’s ancient history. What people want to know now is not where we were three years ago but where we may be in three years’ time. With or without this abject Chancellor, that threatens to be a dark place indeed.
