Our first Dalek Chancellor wants to turn Britain into Skaro

I for one welcome our new socialist overlords. I’m hoping they’ll bring back the unions, an overtime ban, work to rule and if the editor demands one more sketch of Ed Davey – “everybody out!” If I just can’t be bothered to work, I can always go back on the dole. “The people’s flag is deepest red...”

So it was with great personal interest that I watched Rachel Reeves’s statement – a historic day, for she is Britain’s first Dalek chancellor. The voice is electronic; the smile, automatic. She swept into the briefing room, bumped a couple of times into the lectern, then pointed a plunger at the audience. “BRITAIN IS NOT GROWING. YOU MUST GROW.” The business journalists – all graduates in art history – nodded sagely. “YOU WILL BUILD. FAILURE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.”

I grew uneasy. Where’s the redistribution? The dream of ending child poverty? More importantly, where’s my back pocket bung for electing a Labour government? The least she could offer is a free bus pass or some cinema tickets. But no: it seems that having campaigned as a Tory, Ms Reeves is going to govern as a Tory – minus their romantic attachment to the countryside.

She pledged “robust fiscal rules” and a “strong resolve” (those Thals won’t know what hit ‘em). As the Chancellor Dalek turned to planning reform, she became excited, the plunger waggling about, and declared onshore wind farms (groan), housing targets (yikes) and “an interventionist approach” by the new housing minister. Who might that be? I typed it into Google and the face of Angela Rayner popped up, grinning from ear to ear like she’d won a speedboat on Bullseye.

Gott im Himmel.

Now, I like Red Ange: in this new Government, she’s the best line of defence between me and doing a day’s work. But her in charge of infrastructure? I had a vision of finding Ms Rayner in my back garden with a clipboard and two sinister workmen, measuring the flower beds: “I’d say we could fit two council ‘ouses and a wind farm in ‘ere.”

“But what about my roses?” I ask.

“Your objections ‘ave been noted, comrade. Noted and overruled...”

What has Britain done? We’ve elected a party that wants to turn us into Skaro: concrete bunkers from here to the horizon, with not a blade of grass between Watford and Peterborough. Kent become a business park. A journalist asked if her speech amounted to a war on Nimbys; Ms Reeves described herself as a Yimby. The implication was clear: “YOU WILL SUBMIT!”

It is to be a builders’ government after 14 years of “decisions deferred” and projects cancelled. A pity. The tracks of HS2, which came so close to destroying the countryside just to shave ten minutes off a trip to Birmingham, are now overgrown with wild flowers and chirrup with frogs – and that’s the way I like it.

The Conservatives had their faults, but at least they got nothing done, and thus threw up some barriers to progress. The Tory Party needs to hurry up and regenerate a new leader.