When the Labour Chief Secretary of the Treasury, Liam Byrne, wrote that there was no money left, he was telling the truth.
But in what has been dubbed the biggest lie in British politics, Rachel Reeves, the Artful Dodger of 11 Downing Street, takes us for fools in an effort to pick your pocket.
Now this is the most awful rot. A supposedly surprise £20billion black hole hidden by the Tories up until now has been miraculously uncovered by the newly elected Chancellor.
But haven't we heard something about a £20bn black hole before? Yes, indeed we have before the election. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said Rachel Reeves would need to find precisely £20bn if she wanted to avoid spending cuts.
Jacob Rees-Mogg shared his views on the £20bn black hole
GB News
Remarkably, earlier this year, Reeves was honest when she spoke to the Financial Times, when asked if she could claim the country's finances were worse than expected, her exact response was: "We've got the Office for Budget Responsibility now. You don't need to win an election to find out about the public finances."
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said exactly this before the election, too. And so the shameless fiscal fairytale begins.
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The Labour Party is now in government, which means it chooses the balance between taxation and spending, and it chooses where spending falls.
So it's decided to take £1.5bn off pensioners to give it to its chums in the public sector, from Tory voters to Labour voters.
What a surprise. It's taken the decision to spend £8bn on GB energy, the green energy company which it once claimed would save you an extra £300 on your energy bills.
Both the Prime Minister and the Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, have now forgotten about this saving because it was probably never there.
Rachel Reeves revealed in a statement that she will be raising taxes
GB NewsThe trick, the legerdemain, the dishonesty is in pretending that this is not a conscious choice, but forced measure.
Inventing a £22bn black hole and blaming the Tories while spending £8bn on green energy that won't cut your bills and £11bn on overseas climate aid is simply dishonest.
Add to that the 20 per cent extra to buy off its left-wing chums in the doctor's union, and you see billions of pounds being flushed away.
Jacob Rees-Mogg said "this is not the fault of the Conservatives"
GB News
This is not the fault of the Conservatives.
As the new Conservative Member of Parliament for West Suffolk, Nick Timothy, wrote this morning, Labour has absolutely no mandate to do what it is about to do.
So do not be fooled by their fiscal fairy tales. Labour has not been in office for a month, and already its spin has turned into outright dishonesty.
