Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has said John Healey is turning into Rachel Reeves with his refusal to be clear about his plans for the budget.
Speaking on GB News he said: “We report on the strange transmogrification in this particular moggologue of John Healey into Rachel Reeves.
“So, what does the great man do? He goes to Coventry. He hasn’t been sent there, though, perhaps he should be. He goes to Coventry on the day, of course, where Jaguar Land Rover, a major employer in said city, announces large redundancies, mainly because of ridiculous government regulations, which have made it hard to sell the cars they were very good at making.
“And what does Mr Healey talk about? Deregulation. Unfortunately, the regulations that are destroying British business are being imposed by His Majesty’s Government; the Employment Rights Bill being a particularly egregious example.
“He also refuses to rule out tax increases, just like Rachel Reeves, who you will remember put taxes up in both of her budgets, doing endless damage to the economy.
“But worse, failing to learn the lesson of her failure, that if you’re not clear in the run-up to the budget about what may happen, you allow every possible type of rumour to go round, meaning that people take economic decisions on the back of the terrible things you may do, even if you don’t end up doing them.
“So people have left the country, people have sold assets, people delay investment decisions. We’ve seen a collapse in foreign direct investment into this country since Labour has been in charge.
“Why? Because they don’t know the tax regime that they will suffer from.
“He then makes a speech that is billed as being enormously important, an earth-shattering speech that is going to set the tone for this government, and then what is it? It’s about the dullest speech you could imagine.
“It’s Reeves-esque in its turgidity. How did he manage that when, as Secretary of State for Defence, he managed actually to be quite interesting and impressive?
“So, what do we have? We have a government that isn’t clear on its economic policy. A government that promises that it will do great things, but will never tell you what they are.
“A government that wants to carry on taxing, and a government that can’t get expenditure under control, and a chancellor who is turning into Rachel Reeves.
“This is not a recipe for success. It is little wonder that the economy is so weak, and that it’s not getting any growth, which is what he is trying to get.
“All he can do is blame his predecessors. Unfortunately, one of his predecessors who now takes some of the blame is the said Rachel Reeves. It’s almost as if he were blaming himself. No doubt, in a couple of years, somebody from the Labour Party before the election will indeed be blaming him.
“But the country needs a fundamental economic change to get growth. We need spending under control, we need lower taxes, and we need massive deregulation.
“If he delivered that, he could go down in history as a great chancellor. But I wouldn’t put money on that if I were you.”