The country can’t afford Rachel Reeves. This is a politician who declared economic growth her “defining mission”, then strangled it. Who promised she wouldn’t hike taxes, then hit us for £66billion in just 18 months. Whose policies have crushed businesses while driving up inflation, unemployment, the benefits bill and borrowing costs.

Despite our soaring tax burden, Reeves is still borrowing like crazy. Reeves spends £112billion a year more than she raises, all piled onto the national debt. It’s madness, and it can’t go on.

Keir Starmer knows that. He’s unpicking her legacy at speed, even while she’s still in post. The list of policy U-turns began with the winter fuel payment raid, followed by her botched attempts to rein in welfare spending, the tax raid on non-doms and now the inheritance tax on farmers. There’s more to come.

Labour is already in retreat, and local elections in May threaten to turn that into a rout. When that happens, the party will turn on Starmer.

He’ll either go, or Labour plotters will keep him in power while making him do their bidding. Top of their list will be kicking out Reeves. Fair enough. I'd start there too. It’s who they plan to replace her with that scares me.

Incredibly, the frontrunner will be even worse than Reeves. By a power of 10. Only the Labour Party could manage that staggering feat. Too many MPs and activists know next to nothing about finance, having spent their careers in the public sector or charities, where every problem is solved by taxing more and spending harder.

The realities of running a modern economy escape them. Worse, they’d rather signal virtue than make difficult choices. And nobody embodies that instinct better than our disastrous energy secretary Ed Miliband.

He’s creating havoc, and Labour MPs and activists love him for it.

Incredibly, his allies are reportedly manoeuvring to depose Reeves and install him as Chancellor. Terrified? I am.

The so-called soft left is now dominant inside Labour. Most of last year’s intake comes from this faction, but there’s nothing soft about them. Their answer to every problem is to tax harder and spend even harder.

Their main complaint about Reeves is that she isn’t left-wing enough. That wouldn’t be an issue with Miliband.

Given the economic damage Miliband's inflicted with his reckless net zero charge, any sensible party wouldn't have him anywhere near the nation's purse strings.

The electorate certainty wouldn't. They saw through him years ago. After elbowing aside his more electable brother, Miliband led Labour into electoral oblivion in 2015. Voters knew a lunatic when they saw one.

This time, they don’t get to vote.

Miliband's deluded supporters point to his Treasury experience under Gordon Brown. Given the wreckage Brown left behind, that’s hardly reassuring. Then again, Reeves was sold as an economic star too. Labour sets the bar for these things very low.

Miliband would be worse than Reeves, not better. Especially if he’s forced on Starmer, who won’t be allowed to reverse his insanity, as he’s repeatedly doing with Reeves.

Only a party that has lost all grip on reality would look at Miliband's character and record and decide he should run the entire economy. I wouldn’t trust him to run the tea kitty.

Yet that’s the direction Labour appears to be heading. It’ll be a nightmare.

If the country can’t afford Rachel Reeves, it definitely can’t afford Ed Miliband. Yet that's what many in the Labour Party want. It's insane.