𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

It’s not easy being a politician. They make huge decisions and there’s no hiding place. Whatever they do, they get pilloried. The strain must be terrible. And it’s probably harder for women. There’s plenty of old-school sexism out there. But I’m sorry. This is a high-stakes game. People’s jobs, homes and incomes are at stake. If you mess up, you have to take the flak. And Liz Truss and Rachel Reeves both messed up horribly. They just refuse to admit it.

For the sake of gender and political balance, Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer messed up too. Nobody wants them back. The same applies to Truss and Reeves. We’re all desperately trying to forget what they did. Yet they won’t let us. They’re out and about, bigging up their respective legacies. While reminding us why they caused so much annoyance in the first place.

Last week, Truss blamed everyone but herself for her downfall, while convincing nobody. Yesterday, Reeves made her first major speech since leaving office, at Harvard University in the US, and claimed her tenure made Britain “stronger”. She’s totally, absolutely deluded. As Chancellor, Reeves messed up the UK economy by hitting us with a ragtag of costly, impractical and spiteful ideas that had been kicking around ‘progressive’ circles for years and should have stayed there. The economy is dangerously weaker as a result.

Remember the winter fuel payment bungle? That was supposed to establish her reputation as an Iron Chancellor. It was just the first of a string of humiliating U-turns. She then spread panic and gloom with warnings of “tough choices” ahead of her first Budget, before slamming us with £40billion of new taxes.

Her single biggest blunder was the £25billion jobs tax, which made staff far more expensive to employ, particularly young people. The result? Unemployment has rocketed by 250,000 since July 2024. Young people I know are desperately hunting for jobs. To make hiring harder at a time when AI is wreaking havoc was unforgivable. If you feel a shred of sympathy for Reeves’s derailed career, remember the generation whose dreams she’s helped sink. Or the damage done to your high street.

Did she apologise for that? Of course not. She didn’t apologise for her tax blitz on savers, pensioners, workers, inheritances, farmers and family businesses, the Cash ISA shambles John Healey quickly reversed, and a second calamitous Budget that piled on another £25billion of taxes. She doesn’t regret any of it, apparently. And even had the nerve to claim her decisions saved families up to £800 on their mortgages. This at a time when mortgage rates are rocketing. She might have fooled her American audience, but she won’t fool us.

Her taxes were “difficult choices”, apparently, necessary to end Britain’s “failed austerity experiment”. Austerity? This country hasn’t run a budget surplus in 25 years. That’s profligacy, not austerity.

Reeves even had the gall to claim she limited borrowing. This from a woman who increased the national debt by another £250billion or so, pushing it towards today’s record £3trillion. And that’s despite all those extra tax revenues.

She even boasted about leaving £24billion of fiscal headroom, a figure John Healey quickly had to halve. The rest of her speech blames Brexit for everything and suggested rejoining the EU is the answer. So much easier than honestly examining her own failings.

Truss and Reeves are equally delusional. Perhaps they could form a political nostalgia act, like those 1980s pop stars, banging out the old hits.

Reeves is no doubt angling for a plush job in the City, or perhaps some US university or EU talking shop. There’s always a job for a failed chancellor. Although I’d advise prospective employers to take a careful look at her CV.