Chancellor has gone from cosying up to confrontation

Rachel Reeves urgently needs a new script – and some pizzazz.

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Her current spiel about the government inheriting a £22bn black hole from the Tories and having no choice but to raise taxes is feeling extremely tired. Worse, in some quarters it is being greeted with derision and anger.

Those, of course, are the ones singled out for the increases – among farmers, private school parents, non-doms and businesses. Yesterday, it was the turn of the latter to listen to another airing, as the chancellor addressed the annual CBI conference.

They were told she had no alternative. Worse, though, was that Reeves and her speechwriter displayed political naivety. No alternatives had been offered to her. The chancellor insisted she had “drawn a line under the inheritance I faced” from the Conservative government and stressed “we’re never going to have to do a Budget like that again”. She added that the difficult decisions that were made would provide the “stability and platform we need to move forward”.

That’s not as assertive as saying there is no alternative, it’s saying there could be one – but it’s not reached my ears.

Oh dear. Proclaiming that to an audience of highly opinionated, corporate leaders who are not your natural friends, who you went out of your way to woo in the run-up to the general election, only to slap them in the face with your first Budget, is a gift. This, when they are also questioning your credentials to hold such a senior role, as people who put great store by CVs, wondering if the doubts about your own stated background are true.