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Yesterday, in response to the Labour press notice with advance extracts from the speech Rachel Reeves is giving today, CCHQ issued a statement from Richard Holden, the Conservative chair. CCHQ is putting out a lot of rebuttal comments at the moment, and most of them contain an element of whataboutery, but this is an extreme example. Holden says:

The personnel may change but the Labour party hasn’t. Rachel Reeves still hero-worships Gordon Brown, who sold off our gold reserves and whose hubris took Britain to the brink of financial collapse.

Labour have no plan and would take us back to square one with higher taxes, higher unemployment, an illegal amnesty on immigration and a plot to betray pensioners, just like Gordon Brown did.

The Labour press notice does not mention Gordon Brown, or gold reserves. But the CCHQ release points out that Reeves praised Brown in an interview in July 2023.

Good morning. Whenever Rishi Sunak or any other minister speaks in public and tries to explain why the Conservative government deserves to be re-elected, their main argument is to insist that “the plan is working”. In a speech this morning, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, will confront that claim head on.

As Pippa Crerar reports in her preview story, Reeves will say that Tory claims that the economy is reviving are “deluded and completely out of touch”.

Reeves will say:

By the time of the next election, we can, and should, expect interest rates to be cut, Britain to be out of recession and inflation to have returned to the Bank of England’s target.

Indeed, these things could happen this month.

I already know what the chancellor will say in response to one or all these events happening. He has been saying it for months now: ‘The economy is turning a corner,’ ‘our plan is working,’ ‘stick with us.’

I want to take those arguments head on because they do not speak to the economic reality.

Explaining the rationale for the speech, a Labour aide told Politico’s Sam Blewett, that it was designed to pre-empt the “weird victory lap” that Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, are expected to embark on when the economy comes out of recession and interest rates go down. “We want to deny them that reset moment,” the aide said.

But, according to the extracts in advance, Reeves will also take a swipe at another Tory talking point. After the local elections, the Conservatives revived the argument that Britain should not vote Labour because it would result in a “coalition of chaos”, with a minority Labour government dependent on support from the SNP, the Lib Dems or the Greens. At the weekend a No 10 source used this in a briefing to the Telegraph.

Sunak himself did not use the phrase, but on Sunday night he said: “Keir Starmer propped up in Downing Street by the SNP, Liberal Democrats and the Greens would be a disaster for Britain.”

David Cameron used a version of this argument very successfully in the 2015 general election campaign. However, given what happened in the six years after Brexit, his phrase is now best remembered not as an example of brilliant political messaging, but mostly as a colossal joke, and one of the worse predictions ever.

That is why it was odd to see No 10 resuscitating the line nine years later.

And in her speech Reeves will hit back, saying that at the next election voters will have a clear choice between “five more years of chaos with the Conservatives” or “stability with a changed Labour party”.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Rishi Sunak chairs cabinet.

10am: Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, is giving a speech in the City of London.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

Late morning: Sunak is on a visit in London. He has two visits scheduled today.

2.30pm: Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, takes question in the Commons.

Afternoon: MSPs are expected to vote to elect John Swinney as the new first minister.

After 3.30pm: Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, is due to give a statement to MPs on the Ministry of Defence personal data hack.

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