Rachel Reeves’s act of desperation

Rachel Reeves’s visit to China is well-timed, at least from her perspective. With bond yields soaring, fiscal headroom evaporating, and the country running perilously low on gas reserves in the middle of a cold snap, the Chancellor is likely to be enjoying her reprieve from domestic travails.

The purpose of her trip is to hold talks on developing a closer trading relationship, which Ms Reeves claims could lift Britain’s GDP by a few hundred million. While all growth is worthwhile, such a small proportional increase in the size of our economy seems unlikely to offset the damage done by the Autumn Budget tax raid, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s net zero zealotry, or the rising cost of borrowing.

It is an alarming thought that this may genuinely be the best idea for growth that Labour has to offer. Having tried practically nothing in their quest to get the economy moving, Sir Keir Starmer and Ms Reeves appear to be all out of ideas, reduced to writing around to regulators and Cabinet colleagues, begging for proposals. As an approach, this is akin to asking a man making off with your possessions how best to combat burglary.

Excessive regulation and misguided government policies lie at the heart of Britain’s growth malaise. The culpable parties are not suddenly going to change course and suggest a great liberation of the economy, no matter how strongly the evidence might point in that direction.

Nowhere is this clearer than in energy policy. With each passing day, we learn yet more about the disastrous costs of net zero, from the hundreds of millions of pounds paid to wind farm operators to turn off their turbines to the punishing cost of carbon permits. We also learn more about the unreliability of this new approach, with cold weather and low winds pushing the country close to blackouts. As former energy secretary Claire Coutinho has noted, it is a shame that Mr Miliband has decided to axe analysis of the full system costs of renewables, which could have triggered the sort of change that really could boost growth.

As things stand, we appear to be taking a gamble with our energy security, and attempting to offset it with another gamble on our national security. The wisdom of cosying up to China at this point in time is questionable. Even leaving aside the more hawkish US posture likely to be adopted by the White House under Donald Trump, Ms Reeves herself last year cited China’s rise alongside Russian aggression as two of the factors leading to our current “age of insecurity”.

In these circumstances, attempting to develop closer ties to Beijing looks less like a thought-out plan and more like an act of desperation. For the good of the country, we should hope that Labour finds new ideas soon.