RACHEL REEVES was crying at PMQs last week.
What was significant was that it was in full public view, on the floor of the House of Commons.
Rachel Reeves crying during PMQs is a frightening sign
APThe waterworks on display from her this week were more about the future than the past[/caption]
She seemed hot and bothered.
The atmosphere in the house, particularly in the summer, can be oppressive and the chamber of the Commons is not a comfortable place, even at the best of times.
To my mind, however, Reeves was under a different kind of pressure.
The waterworks on display from her this week were more about the future than the past.
Her plan to cut spending by reforming welfare has been sabotaged.
She will have to find more money.
This includes £1.5billion to pay for Labour’s winter fuel U-turn.
Sheer helplessness
And a £4.5billion gap after Sir Keir Starmer ditched plans to cut disability benefits.
Coupled with sluggish growth, we all know what is coming.
In the words of Fagin’s song from the musical Oliver!, she will “have to pick a pocket or two”, entirely legally of course, to make the sums add up.
The impact of high immigration, low growth and already high taxes means that we can barely afford to pay for our welfare state.
Her crying, I am sure, was a sign of the frustration she feels in her job.
I did the job for some short turbulent weeks and I know the feeling of helplessness that it often entails.
There is the feeling of being besieged.
In politics, you are never in control of events, but the sense of sheer helplessness often does occur when you are in a senior position.
At times like that, you have to adopt the old English “stiff upper lip”, in my view.
Senior figures have to hold things together, when things are getting sticky.
Nobody was better at that than our late Queen.
She never cried, never got teary or outwardly sentimental, even under the most extreme provocation.
Yet, as I saw Reeves on the front bench on Wednesday, I totally understood her predicament.
The left-wing backbenchers in her party despise her.
The Chancellor’s plan to cut spending by reforming welfare has been sabotagedPA
They haven’t even bothered to conceal their contempt.
They want her out.
Left-wing outrage is now being expressed by the creation of a new party.
Jeremy Corbyn has said “there is a thirst for an alternative” and “a grouping will come together”.
Time will tell if any of Labour’s left wing — the usual awkward squad — actually join Corbyn’s “grouping”.
Now Zarah Sultana, another left-wing firebrand MP, is going to join.
Reeves is entirely dependent on the goodwill and patience of the PM
Kwasi
For all these types, Reeves is the scapegoat for everything they think is wrong with Labour in power.
For hard-left MPs, Reeves and Keir Starmer stand for nothing.
There is no love lost between them and the Labour leadership.
In addition to the trouble from the Left, we read that some of Reeves’s Cabinet colleagues have been briefing against her.
She had warned them on Tuesday that tax rises in the autumn budget will be needed to cover the costs of the welfare U-turn.
While the Institute for Fiscal Studies says she could be facing a £30billion black hole.
Clearly, the welfare climbdown has made Angela Rayner more powerful.
Reeves’s position is obviously weaker.
It is obvious that Reeves is a totally isolated figure within the Labour Party.
Reeves’s weak position is made worse by the fact that the prospects for the economy and taxes remain grim
Kwasi
Her position is similar to the school swot shunned by her peers in the playground.
She provokes their antagonism and distrust.
She is entirely dependent on the goodwill and patience of the PM.
I know how that feels.
Based on my personal experience, I think Starmer would be mad to get rid of her.
Such a move would merely shorten his shelf life.
His critics within Labour would feel emboldened to come after him.
Yet I can tell you Prime Ministers, under extreme pressure, can do crazy things.
He may well yet kick her to the kerb.
Reeves’s weak position is made worse by the fact that the prospects for the economy and taxes remain grim.
Failing to get the welfare bill through in its original form means the £5billion savings won’t materialise.
Taxes, she has hinted, will have to go up.
Even Reeves knows in her bones that higher taxes will kill our prospects for economic growth, for greater prosperity
Kwasi
Nobody knows which taxes will go up, but increases are on the way.
All this pressure, and the prospect of more challenging days ahead are clearly weighing on the mind of the Chancellor.
I know what the pressure feels like. I never felt like crying but we all deal with pressure differently.
I won’t condemn her for her tears.
‘Doom loop’
It’s the substance of what they are doing and the tax-and-spend policies which I object to.
There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.
More spending and higher taxes.
When she was in Opposition, Reeves spoke about the “doom loop” we faced as a country.
Low growth accompanying high spending and even higher taxes.
Rinse and Repeat. That’s the doom loop.
A world where Britain spirals downwards, economically, to reach a point where living standards decline.
Even Reeves knows in her bones that higher taxes will kill our prospects for economic growth, for greater prosperity.
It is this frightening scenario, I suspect, which caused the teary outburst from the Chancellor.
GettyKwasi Kwarteng was Chancellor under former PM Liz Truss[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
