If you’re worried about next week’s budget, then now is your time to chill out. Because Kemi Badenoch has all the answers. The chancellor, John Healey, has been living rent free in the leader of the opposition’s head for the past few weeks.
More than that, she has been perched on his shoulder while he sits at his desk in the Treasury and tries to make the sums add up. And – SPOILER ALERT – Kemi has now read the whole speech that hasn’t yet been written and is in a position to give her budget reply more than a week ahead of time. If things don’t work out for her in her current job she could apply to be the next Mystic Meg.
In a plush room in Westminster on a wet Tuesday morning, Kemi was giving her verdict in front of an adoring crowd of invited Tory members. Because she won’t be getting that kind of reception next week. Nobody could be worse than Rachel Reeves, she began.
Rachel had been the She-Devil who had implemented £70bn of tax rises. There was someone worse than Reeves. Logic is not Kemi’s strongest point.
Healey would be worse because he would do less. Yup, the chancellor was going to stand up for an hour and say absolutely nothing. Make no changes to anything.
This didn’t seem very likely, but we had to take it on trust. Kemi was John Healey’s brain. And Healey doing nothing was worse than Rachel doing something.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
