Express assistant news editor and Tory councillor Mieka Smiles says the shoddy job one cabinet member is doing is going under the radar.

Rachel Reeves’s name has become synonymous with ineptitude. Despite her robotic reassurances to the contrary, it seems like every idea she has backfires – each one more spectacularly than the last. But going slightly more under the radar when it comes to irking a nation is another of Keir’s cabinet, who I think is messing things up just as spectacularly in her role as Education Secretary. In fact, her Marxist moves are so dire that they make Red Rachel look positively pink by comparison.

If the latest speculation is to be believed, Keir Starmer isn’t impressed with Bridget Phillipson either and the MP for Houghton and Sunderland South is rumoured to be on the PM’s chopping block in a forthcoming rumoured cabinet reshuffle. Understandably, it isn’t a demotion that Phillipson will take lightly. And she’s had her MP pals sticking up for her by accusing Starmer of being “sexist” for even letting the thought cross his mind.

Sexist?! Crikey, that’s a stretch and a half. In fact any decision to ditch her would have me give Starmer a rare bit of kudos. This is, after all, the woman at the forefront of the decision to hit private schools with VAT: a nasty attack on aspiration to feed her socialist soul.

In her head this was about spreading the wealth from posh parents who she thinks have more money than they know what to do with. But the reality is the policy has a dreadful impact on those who often work extra jobs or give up other luxuries in order to fund the huge commitment for their children’s futures. Even the government itself estimates up to 100 of these establishments could close, putting huge increased pressure on the state system. These parents should be handed tax breaks and not punished due to a sad politics of envy.

Indeed, she is so proud of her attack on the independent school sector – and all things that sound remotely posh – that her next target is so shameful that it pains me to even recount it. As a Conservative councillor in Middlesbrough – and former deputy mayor – I worked hard to support Eton to bring a sixth form free-of-charge college to the area for the brightest children from the most deprived backgrounds as part of the Levelling Up agenda.

It would have not only given a future to those talented children who needed that bit of extra support, but would also boost our town more widely. The new campus was set to be located in a town centre that, like most across the country, is in a state of decline. Did I mention that as well as providing expertise, Eton would be investing £1m of its own cash into the scheme?