Carole Malone blasted Rachel Reeves on Jeremy Vine (Image: Channel 5)
Express columnist Carole Malone issued a furious rant about Rachel Reeves and blasted the Chancellor as “out of control” for the handling of the country’s budget. During her appearance on Channel 5’s Jeremy Vine show, the journalist raged: “This is the fiscally incompetent Chancellor we have ever had, he [Keir Starmer] should have dumped her six months ago, probably more than that, but of course he won’t, because he signed off on every one of her fiscal policies.” Carole fumed: “This is a woman who has totally lost control of public spending. She says she inherited a black hole of £20 billion and that’s now gone to £50 billion. The government debt is approaching 100% of our GDP, and the money we’re borrowing is not paying our debt; it’s servicing the interest.”
The broadcaster listed: “Inflation has gone up, growth has gone down, employment is down, 17,000 millionaires have left this country.” As Jeremy argued that the figures are being disputed, Carole fired back: “You always dispute my figures; you go and check, and they’re always right.” In her tirade, she continued: “The deficit is out of control” as she added: “This woman has completely wrecked it.”
Carole made calls for Starmer to fire Reeves (Image: Getty)
When questioned if Starmer should have fired Reeves, Carole claimed: “He’s got a problem, hasn’t he? None in his cabinet has got the wits to be Chancellor, that’s his problem.
“He’s now taken a whole load of financial advisors, which are her advisors; he’s taken them, and sadly, those advisors are people who actually want to hit the middle classes with wealth taxes.”
Carole raged: “That’s going to be a bigger problem than he has already. If he sacks her, he has to take responsibility for the decisions that she’s made because he signed off on every single one of them. It’s something that people in this country might not know.
“He’s hired a whole group of people, and they’ve been called by analysts ‘tax fanatics,’ and they are going to fleece the middle class of this country.”
Fellow guest Nelufar Hedayat argued: “It’s fair enough to say that she’s an unpopular Chancellor, but there can be an effective, unpopular Chancellor, and there have been throughout history.
“It is extremely worrying to sack someone if Mr Starmer is looking to do so before the autumn Statement; he will have to wait and see what she proposes.
Addressing Carole, the journalist said: “If you’re statement is true it doesn’t matter who the chancellor is because all of these policies are being brought down from Mr Starmer himself.
Nelufar added: “No, I do not think it’s the right time to sack her. I do not think her policies have been ineffective. In the first quarter, we had the largest growth in the G7 nations; in the second quarter of 2025, we had modest growth of all the G7 nations.”
Although Carole chimed: “We did not,” the journalist continued: “Let me be really clear, on the gilts and on the interest rates that are going up, Germany, France, and the Dutch bonds have gone up as well.
“So it’s becoming more expensive for Europe for multiple reasons,” as Carole raged: “Gilt yields are higher now than under [Liz] Truss.”