Sad-Eyed Rayner Suffers While Reeves Revels in Revenge – Guido Fawkes

So, Phase I – stabilise the economy, fix the foundations, bring back the grown-ups. That’s all done, now for Phase II – build on the successes, go further and faster with additional grown-ups, deliver a change people can feel in their pockets, appoint a new prime minister, tear the government apart, crash the economy, invite the IMF in and/or the Red Army.

And how’s that going?

There was a tale of two faces at PMQs today suggesting we’re well into Phase II after only two days. The “calm, patient work of change” was proceeding at pace.

Rachel Reeves was trilling girlishly behind the Speaker’s Chair. Still in charge of stabilising, or kickstarting, or unlocking the British economy – she was as ever, the country’s first female Chancellor, adorning the office, pulling the levers of growth and loving it.

By contrast, the facial geometry of Labour’s first female DPM revealed an artful blend of dumb contrition and submission to a higher authority. If it all meant martyrdom, so be it. She would accept the consequences as the price of acting from love, a mother’s love for her family. Soft-eyed in her sorrow, she showed her gift for presentation to be of truly prime ministerial proportions.

After taking her place on the front bench, Rachel leant across, behind the PM to console her old enemy with words of comfort, solace, of womanly solidarity.

Angela glanced back at her comforter and said, “**** off, Rachel.” Not out loud, obviously. Not loud enough to be heard. She returned to her private Gethsemane there on the front bench.

Throughout PMQs Rachel’s face flicked between two extremes. On the one hand, the delights of schadenfreude. On the other, the sense of professional destitution that is coming at her fast. Her circuits shorted intermittently. A smile flashed and collapsed, repeat, repeat. It will be amazing if gilts don’t react.

It all means that a bet on the party members’ favourite Ed Miliband as next PM is very under-priced (some sites still have him at 100-1).

That is all ahead of us. If life is interesting now, Phase III is set to be a radioactive hilarity.

Today, Keir was revelling in the spotlight, and not just because his glamorous assassin was bleeding out behind him. No, he was rejoicing in the renewal of his administration and, he said, of the country.

That’s not as easy as it sounds, but listen to him. We are the fastest-growing economy in the G7. The Government had created 380,000 jobs. The hospitality industry has welcomed Government plans. The farming industry is grateful for Government investment. Borrowing costs are falling because debt is being driven down (yes, debt is being driven down – thank heaven for those fiscal rules!).

He also had some sharp words for the pro-predator populist Nigel Farage and his appalling lack of patriotism. The rotter was in Washington lobbying for sanctions to be applied to this country. And why? Because Reform wanted working people to suffer. They didn’t want any improvement to their lives because improvement meant people would vote for a Labour Government. No wonder the absent Clacton MP traded in grievance – not that there’s anything in the country to grieve about. Unless you were the Deputy Prime Minister.

He, Sir Keir, by contrast, was a flag-waving patriot. He admitted it. Said so out loud. He’d always been one. Not only had he put the union flag on Labour’s membership card, he’d also given Mauritius £300m to take a strategic military base off our hands. Greater love of country hath no one.

And in further news, Phase II Starmer is a free speech advocate, in our ancient tradition. “I’m very proud of that and will always defend it,” he said, attacking Farage for attacking the restrictions on free speech in the internet safety Bill.

Starmer does show the skill set needed for governing Britain. I’m not sure Nigel has it.
The ability to see things that aren’t there, to avoid seeing what is there, to believe the unbelievable and to say things that others daren’t even think (driving debt down is the least of it).

PS: In spite of all experience to the contrary, it’s always a shock to realise how Labour actually views the world. Dawn Butler told the House, “If we tax the gambling industry, we will get £3 billion for our economy.”

The words “our economy” mean, I think, public spending for Labour voters – a very different concept from “the economy”.