On Tuesday I asked the Chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves, what level of ambition she had for finding savings in the welfare budget, given that servicing our debt is now costing twice what we are spending on defence (and which we urgently need to increase significantly).
This was her response:
“I agree that we need to get a grip of the welfare budget, which got out of control under the previous Conservative Government. Frankly, I am not going to take lectures from the Conservative party, which crashed the economy. Let me remind the House what the right hon. Gentleman said about the disastrous mini-Budget:
“I share entirely the free-market ideology that underpins the Chancellor’s statement…The Chancellor was right to be radical.”
He added:
“I rejoice at the two fingers the Chancellor has raised to socialist dogma and envy.”
I think that the financial markets and the British public have united in their view on the previous Government.”
Lecture -Moi !
I didn’t give her a lecture, I merely asked a question. Nevertheless, I am quite flattered that, evidently, she studies this column. What she quoted so enthusiastically, but nevertheless, rather selectively, was word-for-word what I wrote here on 25th September 2022 ( Two fingers to Socialist Dogma and Envy ).
It was my assessment of Kwasi Kwarteng’s disastrous mini budget. I don’t resile from anything that I said back then. I long for the implementation of all the measures that he announced. I just thought that to try them all at once, and at the same time as announcing a mind-numbingly expensive commitment to pay half of all our energy bills (and without first ‘rolling the pitch’ with the financial markets) was, to say the least, ‘high risk’.
Just weeks later I had to defend government policy in the annual no-confidence motion at the Oxford Union. I was half-way to Oxford on the train when breaking news came that Kwasi had been sacked. It wasn’t a good wicket on which to have to go out and bat. My speech is still available at
desmond swayne oxford union speech – – Video Search Results
I lost -heavily.
The upside is that the Chancellor is reading this column and I shall have to take that into account as I consider what to write about!