On days like this, it\u2019s not hard to be overwhelmed by existential futility. At the current rate of progress, the UK looks on course to wipe itself out far sooner than it would with any interference from AI. Everything feels hopeless. Years of minimal growth and a cost of living crisis. The tech bros and the bankers may be getting richer. The rest of us? Not so much.<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s no end in sight. Andy Burnham may offer better vibes, but he is fighting a losing battle against global forces \u2013 wars, energy prices, borrowing costs \u2013 that he can\u2019t control. You can feel the hope drain out of him as each day passes. Mr Congeniality is not quite so congenial as he once was. All the economic forecasts suggest things are going to get even worse in the next year.<\/p>\n
Even Labour allies are preparing the ground for a tough budget next month. The chancellor, John Healey, has been making it known that even he is surprised by just how bad things are. Can\u2019t think why. The rest of us have known for a while, and he\u2019s had the benefit of sitting at the Cabinet table with Rachel Reeves for the past two years. Perhaps he dozed off while she was speaking. He wouldn\u2019t have been the first.<\/p>\n
Still, the government does have one thing going for it. There is currently no one better. That might not be much comfort to some people, but it helps Labour sleep a little easier. Reform members seem determined to take themselves down. If not by financial scandals then by their own stupidity.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why Richard Tice has such a prominent role within the party. Only on Wednesday, Dicky was at it again. Responding to the news that Healey had made the TUC general secretary, Paul Nowak, a non-executive director of the Bank of England, Motormouth Dicky immediately declared Britain had descended into a socialist hell. Were he better informed, he would have known it\u2019s been a tradition for the last 40 years or so that the TUC head honcho gets a gig at the Bank. One started by that well-known Commie apparatchik Margaret Thatcher. But why let that get in the way of an ill-thought through social media clip.<\/p>\n
Usually, Dicky is in a league of his own in the competition to be the dimmest and least competent MP in Westminster. But this time Kemi Badenoch<\/a> was keen to join in with a similar post. As much to remind everyone that the Tory party was still not ready to be taken seriously or forgiven for its 14 years of unmanaged decline as anything else. And where Kemi led, Andrew Griffith followed with his own statement insisting the unions would soon be running the country. You\u2019d have thought that a shadow chancellor, with experience as a junior minister in the Treasury, would have inside knowledge of the Bank of England\u2019s conventions.<\/p>\n There again, Andrew will be Andrew. Living proof of Kemi\u2019s currently insurmountable problem. She can say all she wants that she has changed the party, but all the country sees is more or less the same faces promising that this time everything will be different. Something that\u2019s more or less inevitable when you have a party of fewer than 120 MPs. It takes some cheek to appoint a backer of Liz Truss\u2019s mini-budget as your shadow chancellor. Two fingers to everyone.<\/p>\n