This was the week when the myriad shortcomings of this callow, self-deluded Labour Government were cruelly and dangerously exposed.
In opposition Keir Starmer pretended to have the answer to all society’s ills. Indeed, he may even have convinced himself it was true. Get rid of the Tories, he told us, and everything will be better.
Six months in power have proved he was selling a land of make-believe. In almost every corner of society, at almost every level, he and his ministers are making matters worse.
When New Labour came to power in 1997, Tony Blair was surrounded by politicians of substance. The Mail may not have wholeheartedly agreed with their agenda, but Gordon Brown, Jack Straw, Robin Cook, Margaret Beckett and others had paid their dues and earned widespread respect.
Today’s crop are political featherweights by comparison and are already showing themselves to be embarrassingly ill-equipped to govern.
We have a Foreign Secretary who thinks Syria and Libya are next door to each other; an Education Secretary who puts the interests of teaching unions above those of children; and a Home Secretary who, despite her bluster, is utterly clueless about how to stop the boats.
Ed Miliband’s mad rush to Net-Zero risks power cuts and soaring energy prices (Britain avoided a blackout on Wednesday only by bringing in electricity from Denmark at huge cost).
And then there’s Rachel Reeves – truly the featherweight’s featherweight. It’s one thing to put an inexperienced minister in charge of paper clips, quite another to make them custodian of the nation’s finances.
Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband arrives in Downing Street to attend the weekly Cabinet meeting in London
Keir Starmer welcomes French President Emmanuel Macron to Chequers country retreat near Ellesborough on January 9
No wonder she felt the need to doctor her CV to make it look as if she might know what she was doing. She clearly doesn’t.
Her disastrous Budget fleeced everyone from pensioners to farmers, increased taxes by a staggering £41billion, brought cries of pain from business and is choking growth.
It’s no coincidence that the pound is tumbling and borrowing costs spiralling.
Yet rather than rolling up her sleeves and tackling her problems head-on, she has scuttled off to China, where she’s sucking up to a brutal Communist dictatorship. When the going got tough, the Chancellor got going – 5,000 miles away!
The real blame for this omnishambles, of course, rests with Sir Keir. He put these hapless ministers in place. Their flaws are his flaws, their failings his failings.
His own petulant refusal on Monday to allow a national inquiry into the systematic sexual abuse of young girls in Oldham and elsewhere set the tin-eared tone for the week.
By saying those who sought justice for the thousands of deeply damaged victims were ‘amplifying the far-Right’, he showed himself to both callous and desperately out of touch.
Rachel Reeves poses outside 11 Downing Street ahead of presenting her budget to parliament
His failure to move Tulip Siddiq from her job as City minister while she is being investigated by an anti-corruption commission in Bangladesh over claims of embezzlement is another error of judgment.
Meanwhile, the NHS is deep in crisis (again), the surrender of the Chagos Islands is an ongoing diplomatic fiasco and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is doing her best to crush innovation and excellence in our schools.
If they can do this much damage in six months, what state will Britain be in four years hence? Kemi Badenoch must spend that time rebuilding the Conservative Party and making it fit to govern. As for all incoming Tory administrations, clearing up Labour’s mess will be no easy task.
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