Take more risk with your dosh, says Rachel Reeves. What could possibly go wrong?

Shares in the UK and the US are at record highs, so is bitcoin.

This is the absolute perfect time, the most predictable time, for the UK government to persuade people they need to take a greater risk with their savings.

Rachel Reeves says there will be an ad blitz to encourage people to move money out of low-yield savings accounts and in to shares.

After all, shares are doing well! So nothing can really go wrong.

There is a bundle to be made here for the PR trade too.

First to support the plan, then to explain why, when it comes to the stock market it’s best to take a long-term view.

Er, sorry, longer than that.

The selected PR firm will have such belief in this plan that it will insist in taking its fees in shares**.

The MPs pension fund will ramp up its exposure to UK shares from a pathetic 2% to a racy 60%.**

Because, as the campaign will say, the stocks are plainly better than boring old money.

The obvious point of comparison here is the “Tell Sid” campaign of 40 years ago that persuaded ordinary folk to buy into the share flotation of privatised utility companies.

Those early Tell Sid adopters probably did quite well from the equities.

They have lately noticed that, for customers, privatising national utility companies has been an unmitigated disaster.

Mrs Thatcher’s worst idea ever. (She had some good ones.)

For the campaign to work it has to appeal to young folk rather than just those nearing retirement.

Which means it needs to be a bit whizzy, to work well on TikTok. To be a bit controversial.

Back in the 80s, alongside Sid, we had Yuppies and Gordon Gekko.

They may have been awful, but they made stock markets seem exciting.

Rachel Reeves may have many skills, but throwing a wicked party doesn’t feel like it would be one of them.

So this share frenzy needs a public face; someone known for taking a chance and getting away with it.

Michael Douglas could ham up his old Gordon Gekko.

A celebrity chef might work, but they seem to come with serious baggage risks attached.

On the sidelines, the lawyers who are presently pursuing the banks over car loans for billions of compensation already know what they their next gig is going to be.

Were you encouraged by a desperate government in thrall to a rapacious financial services sector to put money into stock market funds that cost you half your retirement?

You can start preparing the class action lawsuits right now.

** of course it won’t

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