In an interview today, preparing the way for a speech on growth on Wednesday, she said: “We are absolutely fantastic as a country.” She said that Britain could learn from Donald Trump’s unrelentingly pro-USA attitude: “Yes, I think we do need more positivity.”.
Reeves has gone from being accused of talking the country down to sounding as if gripped by starry-eyed fantasy.
In such a similar fashion Rachel Reeves switched from the gloom of painful choices needed to fill the £22bn black hole to the sunny optimism of a chancellor announcing that good times are just around the corner.
Who can say whether this is a planned change to the next phase of her programme for government or a panicked response to business leaders who have told her that she has overdone the talk about the “worst fiscal inheritance since the war”?
There hasn’t been a change of tone like it since the freezing bookkeepers in The Muppet Christmas Carol asked Michael Caine’s Ebenezer Scrooge if they could have some more coal for their fire.
