Winter Fool: Rachel Reeves is a very clever woman – who’s just made a very stupid decision_l
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been handed her dream job, one she’s been working towards for years. And she’s unleashed havoc. Already?
Rachel Reeves discusses axeing of winter fuel payments
Reeves was a Labour Party star turn during the general election. She strode about in her smart trouser suit, looking stylish and exuding confidence.
The message: this was a woman who means business.
Better still, she had a plan. To rebuild Britain and make every part of the country better off.
How would she achieve this? Through “growth”. It was her national mission, and a good one.
Who doesn’t want growth? According to my Thesaurus, the opposite of growth is shrinking, withering, decline, decrease and failure.
No sensible politician would promise that.
Reeves is a clever woman. She studied Philosophy, Politics & Economics at the University of Oxford and got a Master of Science degree from the London School of Economics.
Then she walked straight into a job at the Bank of England.
She was elected MP for Leeds West in 2010, and appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in 2013.
In 2015 she stepped down, because she couldn’t serve under Jeremy Corbyn. That’s in marked contrast to Keir Starmer and very much to her credit.
She spent her life working towards becoming chancellor only to inflict political hell on Labour in her very first speech, by scrapping the Winter Fuel Payment
The rebellion is growing. Even her own side is up in arms. Yesterday, left-wing newspaper The Guardian labelled the decision “mean and politically inept”.
What was she thinking?
Rachel Reeves’ decision to axe the Winter Fuel Payment looks more stupid by the day (Image: Getty)
Reeves pledged to make “difficult decisions”. Axing the Winter Fuel Payment would show she was no pushover.
Reeves also fell for popular notion among Labour activists that pensioners are pampered and privileged and should be punished for voting Tory.
She even appointed a tax advisor who claimed their Winter Fuel Payment was “always undeserved”.
So much for the politics and economics. Now for a bit of philosophy. So often in life, our greatest strengths become our weaknesses.
That’s certainly true for Rachel Reeves.
She knows how money works. Maybe it’s people she doesn’t get.
This was shown by the cold-hearted way she treated three students who worked in her Westminster office. She didn’t pay them a penny in salary, despite railing against “unpaid internships” in the past. All they got was a bit of cash towards their tube fares and sarnies.
Does that suggest she’s short on human empathy? Maybe. Here’s another example.
In an desperate attempt to side with struggling Brits during the cost-of-living crisis, Reeves told a radio interviewer that her bank balance was increasingly short at the end of the month
That’s despite earning an MPs salary of £86,000, while husband civil servant Nick Joicey pitches in with a further £170,000.
She doesn’t know what it’s like to struggle. That’s hardly surprising, given her brilliant career. And that’s why she didn’t see the row over the Winter Fuel Payment coming.
I gasped in amazement when she did it. Within seconds, I’d worked out that a single pensioner would only need to earn £11,350 a year to lose cash worth up to £300.
That’s small change to Reeves, but a big deal for them.
Why didn’t Reeves spot this? Why didn’t anybody in the Treasury warn her?
Labour’s star turn has made the government’s biggest political blunder so far. And in her first big speech.
Now she’s refusing to backtrack. A U-turn would be torpedo her reputation, but I think she’ll have no choice.
This row is not going away. Not with winter coming.
As I said, Reeves is a very clever woman. Possibly too clever for her own good.
