Carole Malone erupts over 'dangerous' Rachel Reeves as tax rises loom - 'Stupid woman!'

Carole Malone has hit out at "delusional and dangerous" Rachel Reeves for laying out the foundations for tax rises this week. The Chancellor spoke at Downing Street on Tuesday, where she failed to recommit to a key Labour manifesto pledge not to hike income tax in the November Budget. In response to this, Ms Malone predicted that "gutless politicians are going to hammer us in the next three weeks" at the annual fiscal statement, as "the working people will bear the burden".

Speaking to the Daily Expresso podcast, she said: "[Ms Reeves] is actually not well. She has said, 'in my last Budget, I fixed the foundations' [of the economy]. This is a Chancellor who imposed the highest taxes on record and is about to do exactly the same thing again. She wouldn't need to put the taxes she's about to put on us all if she had fixed the foundations."

This week, the Chancellor took the highly unusual step of making a speech three weeks before her statement on November 26 amid intense speculation over tax increases.

Ms Reeves, who insisted she would not come back for more after last year's tax-hiking Budget, warned of "hard choices" and said "we will all have to contribute".

She said: "As I take my decisions on both tax and spend, I will do what is necessary to protect families from high inflation and interest rates, to protect our public services from a return to austerity and to ensure that the economy that we hand down to future generations is secure with debt under control.

"If we are to build the future of Britain together, we will all have to contribute to that effort.

"Each of us must do our bit for the security of our country and the brightness of its future."

Ms Malone said: "It is delusional and it is dangerous. I don't know who she thinks she's convincing with this tosh. No one's buying it and all it does is make it look like she's ready to go to the funny farm because it's insanity what she's saying."

She added that the Chancellor had pinned the blame of potential tax rises on a plethora of reasons, including "Trump, George Osbourne, Liz Truss and Brexit". However, Ms Malone fumed: "The one person who has cocked up this entire country in 14 months is her. It's the kind of self-delusion that makes you think that in years to come, history will look back on this period and they'll say, 'How did a woman who has no knowledge of economics get to run Britain's finances into the ground?'"

Ms Malone continued: "Every striver in the this country is going to be penalised, especially the middle classes. These are people who have done everything right in their lives. The people who can't be bothered to work aren't going to bear the burden. It's the people who do work and are barely surviving who are going to get clobbered."