The "Iron" Chancellor. Is this some kind of joke?

Labour's cynical use of the language of austerity can only benefit the Tories

We’re told that at this conference, Labour is trying to present “as small a target as possible” to prevent people picking holes in the party’s pre-election policy agenda. Well, for my money, Rachel Reeves presents a very big target indeed, not least to Labour’s many critics. She gave a pitch perfect Conservative chancellor’s speech with a few clap trap gimmicks like VAT on private school fees. This should surely give pause for thought for those thinking of voting Labour next time. Labour wants to be the party of “change” without any changes at all.

Forget tax and spend. Labour ministers shouldn’t even think about knocking on her door asking for more money for schools, health etc.. Gordon Brown’s “prudence” looks like a profligate spending harlot compared with this penny-pinching female Gradgrind. Keir Starmer’s Labour government will not tax anyone except Non Doms - most of whom will quickly depart these shores taking their taxes with them.

Reeves will stop spending in its tracks – starting with the HS2 fast rail link which Labour won’t revive despite having lambasted the Tories for cancelling the prosperity of the North. Rachel Reeves even resorted to Margaret Thatcher’s long-discredited household spending theory of fiscal management. Look after the pennies, spend only what you earn, like Reeves’ own mother at the kitchen table, she told us.

Reeves, promised “iron clad fiscal discipline”. Everyone knows what that means. Either she is lying or she is in the same conservative camp as Tory chancellors like George Osborne. And Labour delegates all clapped like performing seals. How could all those MPs who fought for a Jeremy Corbyn victory only three or so years ago now be supporting this champion, let’s face it, of Tory austerity?

Is this the same party that offered us John McDonnell as chancellor in the last election? He spent four years schooling Labour’s treasury team in the virtues wholesale nationalisation, debt cancellation, wealth taxes, universal basic income and Keynesian spending. Labour planned to spend £400 billion over four years on social improvements and the climate change transition. Reeves has ditched even Ed Miliband’s promise of £28bn a year for the transition to renewables.

Climate change was hardly mentioned. Instead we are to see Labour as the party of “builders not the blockers” she said. Something to do with Twitter? No – it is all about Labour’s big idea: reform of the planning system. It’s fast forward to the past. Get rid of red tape. Labour has even promised to build over the green belt. No more homilies about England’s green and pleasant land. Liberate the construction industry, comrades.

Reeves promised a “real living wage”, but without putting any figure on it, or any clear idea how it will be calculated. Sunak is already committed to increasing it to £11 an hour. She promised to “close the gender pay gap” – or rather hold another inquiry into the matter by TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady.

Rachel Reeves says the Labour government will halve the costs of consultants (except theirs); stop prime ministers travelling by private jet (ditto), and wage a “war on waste and fraud”. They cheered again when she promised a stamp duty surcharge on house sales by foreigners. Eh?

Labour’s entire governmental programme is going to be financed by taxing Non Doms. These are footloose plutocrats who don’t have to live here if they don’t wish to and so probably won’t. Gordon Brown, when he was chancellor, fashioned the current regime on taxation of non-domiciled businesspeople. Their numbers actually doubled under Labour. He was persuaded that the country would actually be poorer if they took their wealth and investments with them. Labour expects around £3bn from Non Doms and a billion or so from VAT on private school fees. But even on those optimistic forecasts, this would be lost in the small change of NHS’s £180 billion. It’s a joke.

Rishi Sunak must be laughing at all this. He can claim that the Tories have already addressed the growth issue now that the Office for National Statistics has revised its figures and discovered that Britain isn’t as much of a Brexit basket case as Labour said it was and is in front of Germany in GDP. When you talk about fiscal prudence, about balancing the books, everyone thinks of the Conservative Party and Thatcherism. That is how Labour intends to frame its offering at the next election.

Will anyone believe it? Stranger things have happened of course. Labour is banking on everyone remembering Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget and thinking that Labour can’t be any worse. Or can they? When you steal your opposition’s clothes you validate their values. Keir Starmer now has a credibility gap as big as the national debt and shouty speeches won’t fill it.