Rachel Reeves uses Independent’s Saatchi & Saatchi story to attack Tories: ‘The ravens are leaving the tower’

Rachel Reeves has called time on Rishi Sunak’s government, declaring that “the ravens are leaving the tower” as she highlighted The Independent’s revelation that Saatchi & Saatchi was no longer backing the party.

The shadow chancellor used The Independent’s disclosure that Richard Huntington, strategy chief of the advertising firm that helped Margaret Thatcher become prime minister, to attack the “cruel” Conservatives and forecast a Labour election victory in response to Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement.

Ms Reeves told the Commons: ‘The ravens are leaving the Tower when even Saatchi and Saatchi are saying the Tories are not working.’

Her comment was a reference to Saatchi and Saatchi’s famous 1979 election poster attacking unemployment under the then Labour government which featured a picture of a long dole queue with the slogan ‘Labour Isn’t Working.’

Ms Reeves lashed out at Jeremy Hunt’s budget, saying the chancellor had “lifted the lid on thirteen years of economic failure”.

She said the Tories had “held back growth, crashed the economy, increased debt, trashed public services, left businesses out in the cold, and made life harder for working people”.

And she said the British people would conclude “the economy simply isn’t working”.

“Our country cannot afford five more years of the Conservatives,” Ms Reeves said.

She added: “They have held back growth, crashed our economy, increased debt, trashed our public services, left businesses out in the cold, and made life harder for working people.

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Earlier this month. Mr Huntington wrote in The Independent that Britain “desperately needs saving from five more years of stagnation, cruelty and despair” and “ Labour is almost certain to win the next election”.

In his autumn statement, Mr Hunt cut national insurance for 27 million workers and promised to attract £20bn more business investment each year for the next decade.

The chancellor promised 110 measures to unleash growth in the private sector, as he revealed that the Office for Budget Responsibility had significantly downgraded its growth forecasts, with the economy now expected to grow just 0.6 per cent this year and 0.7 per cent in 2024.

But in a stinging response, Ms Reeves said: “What has been laid bare today is the full scale of the damage that this government has done to our economy over thirteen years.

“And nothing that has been announced today will remotely compensate.”

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Mr Huntington’s intervention was hugely symbolic and the latest in a long list of coups for Ms Reeves and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

It comes after Conservative grandee Ken Clarke praised Rachel Reeves’s work as shadow chancellor who also had a ringing endorsement from former Bank of England governor Mark Carney.

Saatchi & Saatchi has been closely associated with the Conservatives after helping deliver three successive election wins for Ms Thatcher, but the Tories later moved to the breakaway M&C Saatchi.

Mr Huntington lashed out at the “divisiveness” of the current Conservative party but warned Sir Keir still has to prove he can be an effective leader like Ms Thatcher.

He said that while Labour was set to be the biggest party, there was still a question over whether Sir Keir “can pull off a majority or even a landslide” unless he creates real public enthusiasm for his party.

Mr Huntington said the crucial difference between Tony Blair’s landslide in 1997 and today was cynicism about “the idea of effective government”.

He wrote: “In 1997, people believed that the UK government could deliver. In 2023, they don’t believe that any government has the power to make the slightest bit of difference.”

Mr Huntington said that while the Tories “scrap for votes through a deliberate strategy of divisiveness ... Labour could spend the next year restoring British people’s belief in the basic concept of effective government”.