SO Rachel Reeves wants all departments to “cut their costs”. Yet more Osborne-type austerity! I wonder what has happened to the Labour Party that once was. When we had just emerged from World War Two, Labour gained a majority and implemented the far-reaching NHS and a housebuilding programme among other things. Things that we need now, but where is their will?

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As far as I’m aware, World War Two far outreached Covid in costs, so what is Labour’s problem? Why have they invented the Thatcherite problem of costs and why do they intend reverting to Osborne austerity, blaming the Tories for a £22 billion ‘”black hole” in the finances?

I suspect this is simply Starmer and Reeves finding an excuse to impose Tory financial rules when they don’t want to have real change – as they had immediately after WW2, and as they recently promised – or they not know the history of their own party? Probably not.

Paul Gillon
Leven, Fife