Rees-Mogg blasts Healey’s ‘dull as ditchwater’ speech saying there is no plan for growth

Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has described John Healey’s speech as “pitifully inadequate” in the face of growing economic problems in the country.

Speaking on GB News, he said: “Well, I don’t know whether you watched it earlier. This fine Ciceronian oratory from John Healey as he raised the spirits of the nation with a speech that will resonate down the ages as to how Labour is to tackle our problems of economic growth.

“If you heard that speech, you weren’t listening particularly carefully. Unfortunately, this was the lead balloon of a plumb weight plummeting to the ground to help work out a distance.

“It was, in fact, Jackanory. Shall I tell you a story about Jackanory? Shall I begin it? There’s nothing in it.

“I’ve actually tried reading the speech three times to see if there is any pith or moment within it, but there isn’t. There is, however, a little bit of a sop to the unions.

“So here is our nation with a bond market in crisis, with the Bank of England facing raising interest rates, with inflation rising, with energy prices almost out of control.

“And what is the solution of John Healey? It’s a trade union education fund. That’s it. There is no big principle. There’s no understanding of how to get growth.

“There’s talk of growth. There’s talk of a plan for Britain, fresh hope for Britain. There’s the hopey feely stuff. But frankly, Mr Healey, you don’t do the hopey feely stuff as well as Barack Obama.

“Barack Obama did it brilliantly. It didn’t get anybody anywhere, but at least he could do it. Your hopey feely stuff is as dull as ditch water, and it doesn’t answer the problem.

“We are running on 45% government expenditure or thereabouts with 38% tax revenues. That leaves a gap of 7% every year, which is why the debt clock goes up and up and up: £3 trillion and counting.

“And there is no plan to do this. How do you get growth? You get growth through supply side reforms. You get growth through deregulating the economy by allowing businesses to get on with business.

“Not thinking government intervention is the answer, not thinking some reheated 1960s programme of intervention will actually work. It didn’t then. It won’t now.

“Instead, Labour has increased regulation. It’s made it harder to employ. It’s put taxes on employers, and the debt goes up and up.

“This was an opportunity. This was an occasion. This was an event where we need to understand what the future economic policy was. It could have been the type of speech given by Jim Callaghan when he explained there was no money left.

“It could have been the type of speech Nigel Lawson used to give, explaining what his vision for the economy was.

“But instead, it was a fund for trade union education. It couldn’t have been more pitifully inadequate if that had been the object of Mr Healey in the first place.”