Instead of Rachel Reeves, we might as well have Bernie Madoff running the show. Remember him? He’s the US financier who created the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. Madoff took billions from new investors to pay the old ones, creating the illusion of wealth until it all collapsed. In the Treasury, something eerily similar is happening, minus the fraud convictions.

The state pension is the clearest example. Innocent workers think their National Insurance contributions are tucked away for retirement. They aren’t. They fund today’s pensions. Nothing is set aside for tomorrow. That system was built decades ago, but the Ponzi element is accelerating on Reeves’s watch.

As pensioners live longer, fewer people of working age are paying in, with five million Brits being paid not to work as Reeves hikes welfare spending by £15billion.

Under Labour, an unbelievable 5,000 a day are signed off work for long-term sickness benefits. Like a Ponzi scheme, this simply isn’t sustainable.

Reeves didn’t start this, but by ramping up welfare spending, she’s ratcheted it up.

To keep the racket going, she’s borrowing like crazy, adding £116.8billion to the national debt in the year to October. Who’ll ultimately pay? Taxpayers of the future.

In her Budget, she promised to deliver a surplus, but as ever there’s a catch. The surplus won’t happen until 2030/31, which is after the next election, when Labour almost certainly won’t be in power. Which means she’ll never have to do it.

It’s a classic Ponzi trick. Promising jam tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes.

Reeves is also ramping up capital spending, amending fiscal rules to pump £100billion into public services and infrastructure over the next five years. She claims the investment will pay for itself, but we only have her word for it.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband is on a similar spree. The bills for his reckless net zero charge keep rising, while the savings get ever furrther away.

Like Ponzi scheme dupes, we’re being played for fools.

Reeves’s tax raids follow the same principle – squeezing money out of taxpayers today but crushing growth tomorrow.

Naturally, I’m not accusing Reeves of actual fraud. But when it comes to playing fast and loose with the truth, Reeves has form as long as your arm. Actually, both your arms.

I’m not alone in worrying. The Office for Budget Responsibility warns Britain risks an “explosion” in national debt under Reeves.

OBR member David Miles says: “On current tax and spending settings, the UK is almost certainly on an unsustainable path.”

Ponzi schemes can run for decades. Madoff’s only collapsed when investors tried to withdraw their funds and found the money had gone.

At some point, the UK faces the same reckoning. Reeves may be long gone by then, but the rest of us will feel swindled.