The black hole of calculator - political sketch

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, has gone through the government's books and discovered a yawning chasm in the finances bequeathed by the Tories' shocking mismanagement.

Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather! Who would have thought it? In truth it was largely a piece of parliamentary theatre as Ms Reeves stood at the despatch box in a severe charcoal grey business suit glowering at her predecessor opposite before very publicly eviscerating him. For his part, Jeremy Hunt glared back petulantly, chuntering throughout from his sedentary position, clearly outraged by such effrontery. 

Both played their parts well; she the shocked discoverer of incompetence and conspiracy, he the innocent victim of calumny and defamation. As ever with these political set pieces the truth lay somewhere between the two of them, bleeding like a body in the library in an Agatha Christie thriller. Both knew they had had a hand in murder most horrid but neither was about to admit it.

Ms Reeves claimed that Mr Hunt had hidden a £22bn black hole in the finances which she had discovered on opening the books. To a universal groan from the much-depleted Tory benches as she trotted out this cliché he accused her of "trash talking" the British economy and retorted that the books had always been open. The full facts were apparent, had she cared to look in the Commons Library, a full ten weeks before the election was called. The Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) had crunched the numbers and she had had full access to them.

In reality, the script for this exchange had been written months, maybe years ago, long before the snap election was a twinkle in Rishi Sunak's eye. It was a narrative that had merely been fine-tuned during the campaign. Labour would claim they had been handed a poisoned chalice and the Tories would counter that this was just a cover for justifying the tax-hiking plans Labour had always had but had concealed from the electorate. It does appear there may have been some departmental budgetary sleight of hand but you decide.

It was inevitable that the Tories would pursue their line that Labour is the party of tax-and-spend while they are the party of sound finance, despite taxes being higher under Sunak than at any time since the Second World War.  It was equally inevitable that Labour would seek to avenge themselves for the 2010 Tory canard that Gordon Brown's premiership was (in some undefined way) responsible for the 2008 global financial crash. They say revenge is a dish best served cold but fourteen years is cold storage - so much for instant rebuttal!

By the by, talking of the Second World War, Reeves' claim that her inheritance was worse than that of the 1940s or the 1970s was scorned by Hunt but she was having none of it. He had forfeited any right to criticise her after the mess he had left the country's finances in. She would roll up her sleeves and sort it out, though it would be a long and painful process, which she kicked off by scrapping Boris Johnson's pet hospital building and railway restoration plans - though she pointedly omitted any mention of HS2. Several road schemes bit the dust and ten million pensioners (full disclosure: myself amongst them) lost their £200 winter fuel allowance. If this is just for starters one dreads to think what the main course will be like. George Osborne eat your heart out - if you can find it.

In revealing this chopping list she unveiled a new mantra, hardly as snappy as Margaret Thatcher's TINA (there is no alternative) but one we will doubtless hear more of in the days and months to come: "if we cannot afford it, we cannot do it". Somehow IWCAIWCDI doesn't have quite the same ring. And she announced the setting up of her new Department of Value for Money - another catchy title. Her first budget is set for 30 October.

I can hardly contain my excitement.

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