Battle tank Reeves crushes Tories, but not her own side

There's something of a battle tank about Rachel Reeves, so it was no surprise that she started her big day by posting a picture of herself posing by an actual armoured car and flanked by soldiers in khaki.

- JOE MURPHY

Gears crunching, helmet hair rigid, the chancellor's verbal caterpillar tracks soon flattened another chunk of the welfare budget. "Economic security is non-negotiable," she intoned, Dalek-like. Exterminate!

Reeves's military imagery alluded to one of her key messages, which she repeated all day long, that "the world is changing". This is the Treasury's latest excuse for the economy not growing in the way that Labour promised, but it also sounds uncomfortably similar to "events, dear boy, events", which was the answer famously given by Harold Macmillan when asked why governments lose elections.

For the morning media round, the defence secretary was wheeled out of his bunker. John Healey was a good choice, not just because he is getting all the cash hijacked from overseas aid, but also because he is just about the only top-rank minister who hasn't pocketed free family tickets to pop concerts.

Shortly before lunch, Reeves trundled from No 11 to the Commons wearing a huge smile - looking as though she had just won the lottery rather than been informed that her NI rise had caused the growth rate to halve. Some tanks have no reverse gear. Taking her place at the despatch box, she received a dutiful rather than ecstatic cheer from her own side. Labour MPs were going to make her work harder than usual.