𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

It is surely only a matter of time before Labour’s man of many U-turns shamelessly pivots once more – and yet again he’ll have Rachel Reeves to thank.

The growing scandal surrounding Plan 2 student loans, and the government’s treatment of the near 4 million Brits currently trapped in them, has been catapulted back into the headlines. Kemi Badenoch piled the pressure on with a vow to massively reduce interest on outstanding debt if the Conservatives got ito power, and even the Lib Dems are making noises about overhauling what is clearly a broken system.

But what will most worry No.10’s political strategists –and I use the term lightly these days – is the breakthrough moment the story just had on daytime TV.

When Martin Lewis barrelled into Good Morning Britain’s sit-down interview with Kemi Badenoch on Monday, he guaranteed the thorny issue a whole new tranche of column inches. And it may just be the moment that tips the student loans row into the public consciousness in such a way that it becomes impossible for Sir Keir to maintain radio silence on it.

The Money Saving Expert – who has already described Reeves’ treatment of students with Plan 2 loans as ‘not moral’ – railed against the entire set-up, which sees graduates who took out loans to pay for tuition hit with an exorbitant interest rate even the Government thinks is too high to be representative of the UK economy.

That alone would be bad enough, but Labour are also freezing repayment thresholds for three years – a move I’ve previously described in the pages of the Express as a declaration of financial war on Plan 2 graduates.

Last November, Rachel Reeves decided that she would in fact treat this loan – which should in theory come with fixed terms and conditions from the moment you take it out – as more of a tax, that she could tinker with on the fly whenever she liked and change unilaterally.

It would be illegal for almost any other institution, company or individual to treat a loan this way in the UK, that is a fact.

Last month the Chancellor herself, when pressed, described what she is doing as “fair and reasonable”. That is also a fact.

And every single person in the UK missold a Plan 2 student loan and now being taken for an absolute ride by this shower of a government is more likely to vote Conservative the next time they’re in a polling booth than they were a month ago. There’s a third fact for you.

That’s the real equation here. Can a Labour government that is monumentally unpopular really afford to be alienating 4million more voters? The latest YouGov polling, released last month, showed that three out of every four Brits do not have a favourable opinion of the PM.

You can practically hear him reaching for the phone to dial up his old pal Rachel and demand a change of plan.

Meanwhile for Kemi, there’s no such thing as bad publicity on this. She is currently the only political figure out there speaking directly on the issue to make clear how broken the system currently is. She’s also now had Martin Lewis apologise for the way he behaved live on national TV, and thank her for at least being there actually TALKING about this scandal.

And why wouldn’t she be? It’s the electoral equivalent of an open goal in the 90th minute.

But sadly in this case Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and the Labour Party as a whole are still warming up the subs’ bench.