Watching the Budget speech yesterday, I couldn’t quite work out who the Chancellor John Healey reminded me of.
Something about his apologetic, rather mournful demeanour, his hesitant, almost timid delivery, the general hand-wringing.
Something about the slight downward turn of his nose, the orientation of the ears, that rather plaintive expression.
Who was it? And then, around the point he started droning on about the new sports centre for Trent, the penny dropped: Dobby the house-elf, from Harry Potter.
Sweet, sad Dobby. Enslaved by the wicked Malfoy family, poor Dobby was terribly cruelly treated, forced to brutally punish himself when disobeying their orders.
It wasn’t until Harry Potter tricked Lucius Malfoy into handing Dobby one of his socks, thus breaking the curse, that Dobby was finally free to live his own life, which he chose to do in the service of his hero, Andy – sorry, Harry.
Like Dobby, you can’t hate Healey. Even if you don’t like his politics, it’s patently obvious that he’s a thoroughly decent fellow. That’s just his vibe. And while not exactly a natural orator, he’s clearly an intelligent and thoughtful man, and we already know he has principles since he resigned from Keir Starmer’s government over defence spending.
So I almost felt sorry for the poor fellow after he sat down, evidently rather relieved, his reward for delivering another depressing damp squib of a Budget a reassuring pat on the back from the Prime Minister.
Kemi, flanked by the newly appointed Shadow Chancellor Andrew Griffith and trusted deputy Alex Burghart, was in full attack mode. This wasn’t going to be pretty.
Kemi, flanked by the newly appointed Shadow Chancellor Andrew Griffith and trusted deputy Alex Burghart, was in full attack mode
Like Dobby, you can’t hate Healey. Even if you don’t like his politics, it’s patently obvious that he’s a thoroughly decent fellow
Line after line, she didn’t so much tear into Government policy as construct a giant pyre of scorn and set fire to it.
‘The Prime Minister came in promising to reverse 40 years of neoliberalism – and instead we got 4p off gherkins,’ she declared gleefully.
Burnham looked crestfallen, like a small boy whose train set has just been confiscated.
With ruthless efficiency, Badenoch pointed out the flaws in the Chancellor’s plans. Britain was ‘over-spent, over-borrowed, over-taxed’; there could be ‘no social security without national security’; ‘a Budget for getting by not getting on’; ‘those on benefits are getting an increase, those going out to work are not’; ‘just because it’s called universal credit doesn’t mean that everyone in the universe should be on it,’ she quipped, triumphantly.
She led her troops in a rousing chant: ‘Inflation UP, Government spending UP, debt interest UP, mortgage rates UP, benefit claims UP, unemployment UP, welfare spending UP.’
Meanwhile, ‘UP’ in the Speaker’s Chair, Nusrat Ghani seemed to be having an almost indecent amount of fun, chastising the enraged Government benches. ‘Miss Emily Darlington, normally so polite,’ she said to the MP for Milton Keynes, before adding, more in sorrow than in anger: ‘Not a great day.’
‘People in the country listening to his Budget will be thinking, ‘is that it?’ Badenoch concluded, adding: ‘This Budget does not come close to meeting the moment.’
And that, really, is the heart of it. She is the woman of the moment. Time and again, Badenoch delivers. Against the odds, in defiance of her critics, in the face of barely concealed racism (not to mention sexism), she just shows up. She doesn’t just meet the moment – she is the moment.
So while Labour tinker at the edges, hamstrung and bogged down by party dogma, seemingly obsessed with the parochial and the patronising, Badenoch seizes every opportunity she can to position herself as a big picture politician.
Showcase moments such as these allow her not only to highlight the flaws in the Government’s approach – but perhaps more importantly they offer her a chance to outline her vision for the nation.
Attack itself isn’t enough. It’s not enough just to jeer and pick holes.
She needs to show that there’s more to her, that she (and her party) has a viable alternative vision for government, as well as the wherewithal to get it done.
It’s this hunger, this self-confidence, this unalloyed appetite for the fight combined with her new, stripped-back team composed of loyal allies that gives her this undeniable air of authority and allows her to wound with such ruthless efficiency.
Despite their jaunty new leadership and the Prime Minister’s matey approach, Labour’s entire strategy is as joyless as it is misguided.
They drone on about ‘austerity’ – but it’s because of them that so many hard-working taxpayers in this country are struggling to make ends meet.
It’s a hair-shirted vision of the future that fails utterly to inspire – and Badenoch is the antidote.
