Just shout if you want growth

“BEFORE WE CAME INTO OFFICE,” Rachel Reeves yelled, “THE PRIME MINISTER AND I SAID LOUD AND CLEAR, ECONOMIC GROWTH IS THE NUMBER ONE MISSION OF THIS GOVERNMENT.”

The Chancellor had decided to deliver her big speech in a Siemens magnet factory. On paper, it made sense: she would be pictured standing in front of actual industry, the economy’s beating heart behind her. Unfortunately, it turns out the industrial cardiac rhythms are quite noisy, and so Reeves was forced to shout her entire long, long speech. 

“GROWTH ISN’T SIMPLY ABOUT LINES ON A GRAPH,” she bellowed. “IT’S ABOUT THE POUNDS IN PEOPLE’S POCKETS.” She always seems to feel she should include this bit, where she explains that actually, money really matters. It generally feels like it’s being addressed to a class of backward primary schoolchildren, or possibly the Labour conference. This sensation is not, sadly, improved by delivering it at eighty decibels. “THE VIBRANCY OF OUR HIGH STREETS,” she boomed on. “AND THE THRIVING BUSINESSES THAT CREATE WEALTH, JOBS AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR US, FOR OUR CHILDREN, AND GRANDCHILDREN.”

That endless sentence was a good clue to what the whole speech would be like: filler in a text that was already overfull. Reeves bellowed at us for 45 minutes, never using one phrase where five would hammer a point to death. “AND FINALLY,” she thundered around the half-hour mark, and we were slightly surprised, because she hadn’t yet got to the Heathrow runway announcement, which was the whole point of the speech. It turned out that she was simply telling us she’d reached the conclusion of her second point. Or her first. I have no idea.

There are probably orators who know how to make their voices interesting even as they shout. Reeves isn’t one of them

The idea behind this event was that by marching into government and announcing that the country was a desolate wasteland that could only be fixed by shoving up taxes and slashing spending, Labour had made business nervous. So a big part of the speech was vibes, with Reeves trying to show us what a cheerful and optimistic soul she is. Without wanting to be harsh, this is a bit of a casting problem. The chancellor is pretty good at looking like the kind of person who’ll tell you off for having a good time. She’s less plausible as a careless booster.

“EVERYTHING I SEE AS I TRAVEL AROUND THE COUNTRY GIVES ME MORE BELIEF IN BRITAIN,” she intoned. “AND MORE OPTIMISM ABOUT OUR FUTURE.”

Sketchwriters were banned from the speech, so I’m unable to confirm that there really was an aide standing behind the camera waving a huge sign saying: “SMILE!”. But let’s say there was. It would certainly explain the unfamiliar thing that kept happening to Reeves’ mouth.

The chancellor’s defenders might say that the only thing that matters is policy, and that the policy in the speech was good. They’d have a surprisingly large amount of support for that idea: Kemi Badenoch would later tell us that all the announcements were Conservative ideas, which, when it comes from her, is probably intended as a compliment. But the delivery of a speech matters too, and the delivery here was dreadful. There are probably orators who know how to make their voices interesting even as they shout. Reeves isn’t one of them.

The words flowed into one another. “CARBON BUDGET SIX,” she boomed. “NEW MARINE PROTECTED AREAS. THE TRANSPENNINE ROUTE UPGRADE.” Somewhere behind her, a robot bleeped plaintively.

“FINALLY,” she thundered. “I COME TO THE DECISION THAT PERHAPS MORE THAN ANY OTHER HAS BEEN DELAYED, HAS BEEN AVOIDED, HAS BEEN DUCKED.” Had it also been “swerved”, “buried” and “put off”? For once, she didn’t say. Perhaps even her speechwriters wanted to get on with it by this point. “THE QUESTION OF WHETHER TO GIVE HEATHROW, OUR ONLY HUB AIRPORT, A THIRD RUNWAY HAS RUN ON FOR DECADES.” It would run on for another 383 words, but she did finally announce the thing that had been in all the papers for days. 

There was, sadly, time for questions. “I AGREE WITH YOU THAT THESE ARE EXCITING PLANS,” she hollered at one reporter. 

Someone else asked if she would release details of her personal finances. “THANK YOU FOR THE REMINDER TO EVERYBODY TO GET THEIR TAX RETURNS IN,” she shouted. “WE WILL USE THAT MONEY WISELY.” In another context, it might have been banter. Here, it sounded like a threat.