Reeves packs up her troubles until budget day and smiles, smiles, smiles | John Crace

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. Cancel that flight to Zurich. At least postpone it. Things might not be quite as bad as you had been led to believe. Or rather, they are that bad but there is some small flicker of hope if you can hold on long enough. There will be pain in the short and medium term. There’s no avoiding that. Try to think of it as character building. But possibly, just possibly, you might come through. We happy few. Blinking into the light of the promised land.

This was Rachel Reeves’s day. And she knew everything was going to be just fine the moment she woke up to find that Liz Truss had posted yet another cry for help on X. You can now follow the Trusster’s decline in real time on social media. It’s got so bad that she now films herself in front of a bookcase where everything is arranged by colour. The kindest explanation is that she thinks she’s filming a hostage video and the books are a coded message for “I’m being held against my will”.

How much more lucky could the chancellor get? On the very day when she had to remind everyone that the Tories had wrecked the economy, there was the former prime minister doing her job for her. In her own inimitably deranged way. Here was the Trusster unplugged. In the raw. A terrifying prospect for her psychiatrist, let alone the rest of us. All of our mortgages recoiled in horror.

What we got was pure psychosis. Her mini-budget had been a brave new world. Cut off in its prime. Destroyed by envy. She had spoiled us. If only she was still in No 10, then we would all have more money than we knew what to do with. All our needs met. Our happiness assured. Will you tell her, or should I? Literally the only thing she has done for the country of any value is to resign.

Even better, Kemi Badenoch also chose the Monday of the Labour party conference to release her own comedy video. Clearly every Tory had chosen the same day for their very own public breakdown. Kemi’s delusion is almost as total as the Trusster’s. She began by insisting that she had never knowingly picked a fight with anyone. Er, hello? I couldn’t bring myself to watch any more. It was too painful to watch the disintegration of the psyche. Sometimes the dividing line between comedy and pathos is paper thin.

Come late morning, Reeves was confident she could suppress her normal counsel of despair. Think happy, she told herself. Offer some optimism. Even if you don’t really feel it. Fake it to make it. She got her first standing ovation of the day just for entering the main conference hall and taking her seat on the platform among several other cabinet ministers.

The delegates were up for some hope too. They seemed to have shaken off the lethargy of the day before. The media focus on freebies seemed to have dissipated and they were ready to enjoy themselves. Celebrate their successes. Hell, if they couldn’t have fun at their first party conference in power in 15 years, then when could they? They just needed a bit of reassurance. To have their hands held. To be told that everything was going to be OK in the end. That there was a prize to be had.

Then the lights went down and the volume on the public address system turned up to eleven. Everyone perched on the edge of their seats that felt as if they had been designed by easyJet. To make sure no one relaxed for the duration. A video started playing greatest hits of Rachel meeting various people whose names she probably never knew. It felt like the build-up to a party leader’s speech. Some might say she already is the de facto leader.

And … smile. That was the first word on the Autocue. A reminder to try to look happy and optimistic. To not terrify the audience. So Reeves smiled. And kept smiling. And smiling. Her mouth forced unnaturally wide. Trying to squeeze out the first 10 minutes of her speech in a rictus grin. Shades of Gordon Brown trying to prove that he could connect with people. Both are less frightening when they revert to default miserabilism. It somehow feels more real. We’ve had enough of snake-oil chancellors. Right now, we’d settle for one who knows what she’s doing.

Early on there was an interruption for a protest about arms sales to Israel. Rachel looked momentarily unnerved before regaining her composure. She opened with some greatest hits. The first woman chancellor. The Tories had wrecked the economy. Things were worse than she had imagined. She knew that people were impatient for change but this couldn’t be rushed. We all needed a bit of time on life support.

There would be no return to austerity, she said. This got the first ovation of the day. The second and longest was the announcement of the Covid commissioner. Someone would go round to Michelle Mone’s mansion and threaten to kneecap her if she didn’t return all the dosh. Failing that they would nationalise her yacht. Rishi Sunak’s helicopter had been permanently grounded. Huge cheers. VAT on private schools. More cheers. The winter fuel allowance was rather glossed over. Presented as means testing rather than a cut.

Finally the upbeat bit. The bit that has gone awol during the first three months of the Labour government. Everything was going to be all right. There was a plan. Hospitals and homes would be built. People would be richer. Businesses would thrive. Growth. There would be a lot of that. Things would start growing spontaneously. There was only one hiccup. It was unfortunate to announce the pay deals for public sector workers just as the Royal College of Nursing had voted to reject its own.

Rachel started grinning again as she wound to the close. Almost as if she reckoned there was a chance she might pull it off. Mission Impossible. To make Britain a credible economy again. Still, she had done enough. She had reversed the narrative. Given people something to believe in again. A reason to live. Obviously she hadn’t really said anything substantive. The real test would be the budget at the end of October. But she had bought some time. Off the hook for a month at least. Just remember to keep smiling.