Since taking office, Reeves has lurched from one screeching U-turn to another. Scrapping the winter fuel payment was a shocker. The family farms tax was another howler, betraying a misunderstanding of how farming works. She’s watered it down, but not nearly enough, and she hasn’t reversed her damaging assault on family businesses. Her welfare U-turn brought more humiliation. Worst of all was her £26 billion “jobs tax”, which has already cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. Time and again, her ideals have collided with reality. Now she’s crashed into another blunt reality: the madness of Ed Miliband. The rest of the country worked him out years ago. At least Reeves got there in the end.

Miliband has always lived in an ideological bubble. Raised on Marxist thinking, he’s never shaken it. The more his ideals fail, the harder he clings to them. Voters rejected him decisively in 2015, when he led Labour to electoral defeat. His conclusion? He lost because he wasn’t left-wing enough, a mistake he pledged never to repeat. He’s now slipped back into power on Keir Starmer’s coattails. With the PM exposed as an empty vessel, he’s the single most influential voice in government.

And he’s using that power to pursue an energy policy that simply doesn’t add up.

I get why Miliband is keen to expand renewables. As war in Iran wages, Britain needs all the home-grown energy we can produce. But that includes oil and gas. Miliband refuses to accept that, even as prices and energy bills surge and pressure mounts from industry, unions, business leaders and Labour voters alike.

Miliband claims North Sea drilling won’t cut prices. He never mentions that it would boost tax revenues, create jobs, strengthen the balance of payments, support the pound and improve energy security. It would even cut carbon emissions compared with shipping in liquefied natural gas from the US and Qatar. Still, he refuses to budge.

Finally, Reeves has had enough. Risking a party split, she’s humiliated Miliband by openly backing new North Sea drilling, saying she would be “very happy” to see projects such as Rosebank and Jackdaw go ahead. Rosebank alone holds an estimated 300million barrels of oil, while Jackdaw could supply 6.5% of Britain’s gas output. Right now, every little helps.

Reeves pointed out the obvious truth that oil and gas will remain vital for years and admitted that Britain must “take control” of its energy supply instead of relying on volatile global markets. That puts her on a collision course with Miliband, who has blocked new exploration and insists the only answer is to abandon fossil fuels.

Reeves blamed the courts for hold-ups. She can hardly admit the real problem sits beside her in the Cabinet. Miliband has acted to delay key licensing decisions by demanding further information from operators.

Maybe I’m being harsh in calling the Chancellor slow. Perhaps she always knew the trouble with Ed Miliband, but didn’t dare say it. Now she can’t hold it in any longer. And that tells us everything.

If even Reeves can see the damage Miliband is causing, imagine how the rest of the country feels. Even Starmer knows. He tried to move him in last year’s reshuffle, but Miliband pushed back. Now we’re all stuck with him.

Labour activists love Red Ed. Terrifyingly, if Starmer is outed, Miliband could be the next Chancellor. Or even PM. That would be the ultimate madness. But these are mad times.