Why is Labour still using the self-defeating, discredited ‘maxed out credit card’ analogy? | Yanis Varoufakis

It is one thing to U-turn on a modest green transition programme. It is another to do so using mendacious Tory economic paradigms

Rarely has a lacklustre policy been abandoned for a reason so bad that it threatens to inflict long-term damage on a society. Independently of whether the 28bn green investment programme was the right policy for the next Labour government to commit to, Rachel Reeves's reasons for ditching it were an undeserved gift to the Tories and a partial vindication of their disgraceful flirtations with an austerian, anti-green political narrative.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today shortly after her U-turn on Labour's headline 28bn green transition programme, the shadow chancellor explained her decision by claiming that, under Jeremy Hunt, the Treasury is planning on maxing out the credit card", adding for good effect that the Tories are maxing out the headroom ahead of the next general election" thus limiting what an incoming Labour government will be able to achieve". By comparing the state's coffers to an overladen credit card, Reeves endorsed an insidious fallacy.