Rash review is only renewing old errors

THE fantastical, farcical, fiscal fair rolled into Westminster this week, utterly detached from reality, as it peddled its expensive delusions.

- Leo McKinstry

In the make-believe world created by Chancellor Rachel Reeves, huge sums of public money can be conjured out of thin air, debts can be ignored and the red ink soaking Treasury balance sheets is no cause for concern.

On entering the Cabinet, Reeves presented herself as the new Iron Chancellor on a mission to rebuild public finances. Faced with deepening unpopularity, she has decided to transform herself into the Queen of Financial Extravagance.

Prudence has been replaced by profligacy, restraint by recklessness. She is now not so much "Rachel from Accounts" as "Rachel from the Insolvency Division".

When the maverick Right-winger Javier Milei became president of Argentina in 2024, he adopted the chainsaw as a symbol of his determination to slash state bureaucracy.

In contrast, the jet wash could be the emblem of Reeves' mismanagement, given her growing eagerness to spray around taxpayers' cash.

The display of partisan adulation in the Commons for her spending review only emphasised how ill-judged her policy is. This was traditional spendthrift socialism whereby services and initi-