Katy Balls Katy Balls

Mark Carney’s endorsement of Rachel Reeves will hurt the Tories

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves on stage in Liverpool (Credit: Getty images)

Listening to Rachel Reeves’s speech at Labour party conference one could be forgiven for thinking Liz Truss is still in 10 Downing Street. The shadow chancellor referenced the former prime minister more times than Rishi Sunak as she used her moment on the conference stage in Liverpool to try to depict Labour as the less risky choice on the economy.

Reeves claimed that ‘Liz Truss might be out of Downing Street but she is still leading the Conservative party’. The shadow chancellor said that only a Labour government could safeguard against Truss’s Tories – and she was cheered when she mentioned her plan to introduce legislation to ensure the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) can independently publish its own impact assessment of any major fiscal event, in a reference to Truss’s mini budget. Expect more of these type of attacks in the coming months; Labour plans to ramp up the idea that, were the Tories to win a fifth term, the party would be a danger, as a reduced majority would see MPs on the right of the party wield greater influence.

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