Not all Tory MPs are happy about Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini Budget

Rachel Reeves’ response to the not-a-budget was one of the best Budget responses a shadow chancellor has produced in Labour’s 12 long years of opposition. It helps that the ‘Plan for Growth’ was so striking and ideological: not only does it create a clear dividing line with Labour, it also creates a division with the Conservative governments that preceded it. Reeves got to her feet remarking on a ‘comprehensive demolition of the last 12 years’, something Kwasi Kwarteng himself signalled repeatedly, including in his announcements that he would repeal legislation introduced in 2017 and 2021. 

The shadow chancellor managed to avoid the traps that so many of her predecessors have fallen into over the past decade or so. She avoided a monotonous moral outrage which, while undoubtedly sincere, has never appealed to voters. Given the scale of the cost-of-living crisis, it would be very easy to end up sounding like Ed Miliband when he was leader, so full of doom and gloom that the electorate stop listening.