I suspect most people have little time for John Healey. He may imagine that, as Chancellor, he now occupies some pristine political bubble, safely detached from what went before. But Labour members and the wider public have memories. Healey was not some innocent bystander during the events that brought Keir Starmer’s premiership to an end. He was front and centre in the rebellion against Starmer, resigning from his Government and helping to create the political circumstances in which his position became untenable. Whether one calls that a coup or a revolt, Healey was plainly part of it. And therein lies the extraordinary irony. Having helped undermine Starmer, Healey now finds himself confronting many of precisely the same economic realities faced by Starmer and Rachel Reeves. Indeed, he has retained Reeves’s fiscal rules and has described the new Government as one of economic continuity. What is becoming increasingly apparent is that Starmer and Reeves were doing a considerably better job with the economy than much of the mainstream media was prepared to acknowledge at the time. Reeves left behind around £24 billion of fiscal headroom, while the economic position Healey inherited has subsequently been made more difficult by international events, including higher oil prices, inflationary pressures and increased borrowing costs. That is what makes the present situation so revealing. It is very easy to stand on the sidelines, participate in the removal of a Prime Minister and suggest that everything should have been done differently. It is rather more difficult when you inherit the Treasury, open the books and discover that economic reality has not conveniently changed simply because the occupants of Downing Street have. Perhaps some of those who were so eager to condemn Starmer and Reeves should now reflect upon their own judgement. The economic record they were so quick to dismiss is beginning to look rather different with the benefit of hindsight.