As Rachel Reeves returns from China she must be under no illusions, UK’s economic crisis is real

Chinese takeaway won’t fill UK coffers

IT IS almost 46 years to the day that a Labour PM returned from abroad to dismiss evidence that Britain was gripped by economic chaos, creating the famous Sun headline: “Crisis? What crisis?”

Unlike James Callaghan, Chancellor Rachel Reeves can be under no such illusions as she returns from China.

This crisis is real.

But as markets went into meltdown, she bizarrely headed to Beijing to announce a new investment deal worth a paltry £600million over five years.

That will not make much of a dent in the £9billion hit to public finances from the spiralling bond crisis.

As Tories claimed the Chancellor was a joke, making a laughing stock of Britain, she posed with a British bike firm that has frozen recruitment over her National Insurance tax grab.

Now, amid a plunging Pound and calls for her own head to roll, Reeves has ordered the Treasury to cut billions from the bloated benefits budget.

The Sun has long campaigned for massive welfare reform.

Payments for disability and health conditions alone are due to surge 60 per cent from £22billion to £35billion by 2029.

If she had tackled waste head-on in her first Budget, the Chancellor would not now be in such a tight spot.

But after her growth-strangling policies, there is no room for manoeuvre.

Sir Keir Starmer also has no choice.

The PM has to stand firm against all opposition from the Left of his party and drive the cuts through.

As for the Chancellor, her press conference in Communist China did not permit questions.

But as jittery markets open tomorrow, she had better prepare for the mother of all inquisitions.

Crim’s Belgian waffle

IT is a disgrace that so few of the foreign criminals crammed into our overcrowded jails are being deported.

But it beggars belief that an alleged people-smuggler is fighting extradition to Belgium by saying that their prisons are not good enough.

Adriatik Hysenlika gained a British passport in 2007 after claiming persecution in his native Albania.

He is accused of running a massive migrant-trafficking gang across Europe.

Now he says that sending him to the home of the EU to serve a ten-year sentence would breach his rights, partly because Belgium’s jails are overcrowded.

Is it any wonder why our jails are packed too?