Ready, steady and go for the shadow chancellor: Rachel Reeves took to the stage in Liverpool in sombre navy trouser suit, a stern figure with glossy helmet of hair. Her message was that Labour, the old party of tax and spend, had been reborn as bearer of a “war on waste”, “cold-blooded efficiency in public finances” and the insistence (eight times in total) of being ”ready to lead Britain.” The other word she used a lot was “I”. This is the speech of a figure who does not intend to be the number two in a Labour government. It was a pitch to govern with Keir Starmer as a duumvirate. That might get interesting down the line. But then Reeves has the safest job on the front bench.
Speech delivery is a work in progress. Someone has told her to smile a bit more and the effect is a sporadic grin, at times syncopated with the actual content, in the manner of Janet, the helpful AI humanoid in The Good Place.
Labour’s big command has been divided on how far to sound confident of victory. But Reeves’s tone had the assurance of someone who believes she can have her feet under Jeremy Hunt’s desk within the year. Next year “I intended to address this hall as Britain’s first female chancellor of the exchequer”. There would be “iron” discipline on spending. Were we aiming for the “Labour’s iron lady?” headlines? We surely were.
Electoral chickens, if not yet hatched, are being counted and Reeves’s speech was the furthest any Labour figure has gone in telling a national audience that Labour is “ready” for power (nine times by my count).
Reeves is the most impressive figure on the front bench in terms of natural authority
A downbeat national mood is being turned into a rhetorical springboard. “Does anything work better after 13 years? “ asked Reeves mordantly. Given that curing “broken Britain” was the Conservatives’ slogan when they won in 2010, it’s worth remembering that the tendency to declare Britain is buggered up is cyclical. But Reeves had a veritable banquet of Tory troubles to sustain a barrage of bad news.
She would support who have had their chances “destroyed by Tory governments”. Did we see a wince from Ed Miliband, the extant losing Labour candidate on the front bench? Conservative leaders have come and gone — and it kept getting elected. This shadow of failure still haunts the the gathering in Liverpool, even if a scrappy Tory gathering last week has emboldened the leadership to make a more forward pitch for voters’s faith.
Reeves is the most impressive figure on the front bench in terms of natural authority — the shadow cabinet rose obediently to their feet with a haste that suggests no one wants to be seen to be lagging in enthusiastic support. Angela Rayner, the deputy leader who has had scratchy relations with the shadow chancellor over message discipline, got an olive branch in an announcement to end zero-hours contracts and a real living wage.
Occasionally, we counted our spoons as we were spun into a Labour-led realm in which iron rule from the Treasury would root out Covid-era fraud and funnel the proceeds back into public coffers. Good luck with that one. The Labour hall loves things being banned — so zero hours contracts were dispelled to riotous cheers (second year running on that one). Reeves did not dwell on how this might be routinely circumvented — we are all about the big picture here, not the fine brush strokes.
There is one other commonality with Margaret Thatcher that the shadow chancellor’s fan club might not relish: hers is not an easy voice to listen to over a long period, rising from insistent to a hoarse yodel and occasional bellow.
But these are speeches intended to be sliced and diced for social media consumption, so most listeners will be spared the mounting sense of being shouted at. Key messages were jam packed with a hint of magical thinking about how “more” teachers and healthcare workers and all those welcome but costly green job transitions to turn the country’s Sunderlands and Blyths into hubs of technological advancements and electric battery makers to the world would happen without pricey investment and longer transitions.
Labour would be “builders not blockers” with a massive housing plan boost, light on the trade offs that will entail. Bypassing attacks on the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, she aimed the Reeves blunderbuss straight at Rishi Sunak, whose private jet habit was one of the few jokes to make the cut. ”Bring it on,” cried the iron person with the gimlet look of a figure who finally believes she can get rid of the “shadow” in near future. She brought it on.
