It’s the economy, stupid. That was the message from Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, to her Conservative opponents in her speech to Labour’s party conference. Ms Reeves is not a showy politician. Her style is to be all substance, and her message was that she is capable and decent. This is smart politics. The Conservative party has proved to be incompetent in its stewardship of the economy just when the issue topped the political agenda.
Ms Reeves set out her party’s stall by promising to boost business investment, build homes and ease planning rules – especially around green industries – to spur growth. Often seen as a hard-headed pragmatist, the shadow chancellor played on her party’s heartstrings with a call for a Labour government to rebuild public services and create jobs. She also hit home by creating dividing lines with the Tories by contrasting her plans for stable growth with the Conservatives’ record of wasteful, corrupt and inept administration. The biggest cheer was for her proposed anti-corruption commissioner to recover money lost to fraud during the pandemic.
