Ken Clarke: ‘Rachel Reeves not up to the job as Chancellor - she’s deceiving herself’
Lord Ken Clarke, former Conservative chancellor, tells The News Agents why he believes Rachel Reeves is “not up to the job” ahead of her second budget.
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In brief…
- Lord Ken Clarke says Chancellor Rachel Reeves has already bungled her second budget by allowing its contents to be publicly debated, even fuelling this with a pre-budget speech in early November.
- Lord Clarke does not believe she is “up to” the job, but acknowledges the poor financial situation Labour inherited from the previous Tory government.
- He says criticism of Reeves is not because she is a woman, despite her claims, and that she is “deceiving herself” in believing this is the case.
What’s the story?
Lord Ken Clarke, former Chancellor of the Exchequer and a Tory MP for 49 years, says Rachel Reeves is not “up to” the job, ahead of delivering her second budget this week.
Speaking with The News Agents, Lord Clarke says she made the “wrong choice” to tax employers in her 2024 budget, and her choice to encourage and stoke “debate” over the contents of her 2025 delivery is a mistake.
Amid speculation Reeves would break Labour’s election pledge to not raise taxes for workers, she spoke to journalists in early November, saying her budget included “difficult” decisions.
“The honest truth is, I don't think she is up to it,” Lord Clarke tells Lewis Goodall, from his home in Nottingham.
“The two catastrophic things she's done are to make the wrong choice of taxation in the budget, to make no attempt to cut public spending, and now to run this debate.
“It was an absolute sin to leak any part of the budget. She's presided over not a very well organised debate, but she keeps floating things and trying them out.”
He believes she has allowed this “debate” over her second budget to continue so special advisors can monitor how various policies play out in opinion polls before making a final decision internally.
This, Lord Clarke adds, has created an “even gloomier atmosphere” among anyone waiting on her budget delivery this week.
“They've got to get it right, they've got to put their tin hat on, and they've got to raise taxes,” he says.
“The debt burden that they've inherited is extraordinary. They've got to begin to get this huge burden of debt off our back, and they've got to concentrate on doing things that actually make us attractive to investors, improve the performance of our industries and our services.
“As far as I can see for the last month, they're faffing about.”
‘There are no easy options in politics’
He says he would never have believed that the UK would ever be in a position where its debt burden was 100% of its GDP.
With extraordinary national debt on top of the cost of living crisis which affects almost every person living in the UK, with Clarke blaming the annual expansion of state spending – and despite the huge cost, resulting in "terrible trouble" for our public services.
Successive UK governments, he adds, are being advised by lobby groups whose only suggestions are to spend more.
“Politics is tough. You don't get easy options,” he adds.
“You have to react to events, and right now she has to raise taxes, cut public spending, resist these lobbies, and do it in some way she's decides is in the best national interest.
“This is what the British economy needs to be put back on its feet.”
Trying this approach, he suggests, might leave her "amazed" and tempted to repeat this in future budgets.
‘Criticism of Rachel Reeves is not because she’s a woman’
Clarke's opinions might not matter much to Reeves, who has said she is "sick" of having her own job mansplained to her.
Describing himself as an "ardent feminist", Clarke says he is "delighted" at the change in politics during his career, and particularly of serving under three female leaders of the Conservative Party.
“The House of Commons is not quite 50/50, but we're nearly there. One of the great things that's happened in my lifetime is the triumph of feminism,” Lord Clarke says.
“It's no good thinking that she's being criticised because she's a woman – she is deceiving herself.
“She's being criticised because in her first budget, all she did was borrow billions more, and then the tax she chose to raise was the worst possible to choose – a tax on employment and on employers.“