Every now and again you wonder if the Labour Party might be ready to govern.

In Scotland, Labour now has better leadership with a desire to work in co-operation with the UK Government rather than the constant confected conflict that is the way of the SNP.

Could the Scottish Labour Party be part of the next Scottish government, a coalition of the sensible to start tackling the real issues we face? It absolutely could.

At the UK level there is also progress for Labour. Is Sir Keir Starmer a charismatic leader? No, but he is decent and sensible. What he can’t quite stamp out are the lunatics in his party who still want class warfare, to “Get” the wealthy.

The hatred much of the Labour Party has for Tony Blair, the leader who gave them three consecutive election victories, is remarkable. The key to Blair’s electoral success was he didn’t frighten a large selection of the electorate. He understood private enterprise, he didn’t impose punitive tax rates, freedom of choice was not subordinated to the cult of “we know best”. As a result he was able to pursue mildly left-of-centre policies which advanced the principles Labour believed in rather than shouting radical nonsense and being in constant opposition.

The years of opposition have been difficult for Labour – picking the wrong Miliband and then the Corbyn car crash. Self-harm can only go on for so long and so now we have Sir Keir.

The trouble with him is that we don’t really know what he believes in. We know what he is against but not really what he is for. He has not assembled a team of competent and sensible people around him. Sometimes the mask slips and one of them says something truly stupid.

This time it was Rachel Reeves. Worryingly she is the person Starmer would like to be Chancellor so counting should be one of her big things. Sadly not. She couldn’t resist having a go at Labour’s top-class warfare target: private schools.

Ms Reeves recently equated someone buying a washing machine and paying VAT with a parent paying school fees and not paying VAT. So why shouldn’t they pay VAT? This plays on the “tax break” nonsense that those on the left of politics love.

Most private schools don’t make profits in the normal sense of the word – any surpluses are invested back into the school – there is therefore no profit on which to pay tax. Before you disqualify them as charities consider what you would actually lose. Without charitable status private schools would have no need to enable brilliant young people who cannot pay their fees to be at the school. No place for a young Rishi Sunak then, but no impact on the truly rich.

What charitable status has absolutely nothing to do with is VAT. Schools do not have to charge VAT on fees because education is an exempt supply for VAT purposes. It is not the fact the school is private that means there is no VAT but because it is supplying education.

Certain things such as food, children’s clothes, books and education deliberately have no VAT charged on them for very good and obvious reasons. In the case of education, it would be quite hard to justify VAT on school fees but not university or college fees – there is no real difference, education is education.

What Ms Reeves said is stupid in that she promises to spend VAT levied on private school fees on education but ignores the fact that increasing the price of private education will inevitably mean a large number of parents can no longer afford it and so will send their children to state schools – taking up the places which they previously paid for through their taxes but didn’t use. There will be no net benefit to the public purse and probably a net cost.

The other thing which Ms Reeves’ remarks show is that Labour doesn’t like people having a choice. It wants you to have to take what they decide is good for you.

Imagine for a moment books were deemed to be such a public good that they were provided free by the state. How wonderful, you might think. How long would it be, though, before a government committee decided not all books were “appropriate”? Perhaps the ones which said a woman was an adult female or the British Empire was not entirely evil, would go. As long as you could still decide not to go to the free government bookshop but instead go to the private bookshop of your choice and pay, free speech and plurality of thought would have a chance. If private bookshops were banned or taxed out of existence you would just get the stuff the Government decided you should. I’m sure a system such as this exists in North Korea.

Education is the same. The existence of affordable private education gives a choice, like most choices it is not available to all but it is there. The choice can be aspired to or ignored but it enables comparison and underpins liberty.

In making such a pathetic comparison of education with a washing machine Rachel Reeves betrays herself and her party. Not yet fit to govern.