RECKLESS Rachel Reeves raced to rip up restraints on City wide-boys today in a move analysts warned could lead to another 2008-style crash.

The Chancellor announced plans to reduce regulations on the finance sector in a desperate move she hopes will boost economic growth.

Reeling from multiple setbacks to her economic strategy in recent weeks, Reeves went to Leeds, her constituency, to unveil the new fat-cat-friendly package.

She was set to expand on the package last night in the annual Mansion House speech the Chancellor makes to the City hierarchy.

Billed as the “biggest financial regulation reform in a decade”, Ms Reeves said of her proposals: “I have placed financial services at the heart of the government’s growth mission — recognising that Britain cannot succeed and meet its growth ambitions without a financial services sector that is fighting fit and thriving.”

Committing to discredited trickle-down theories, she said the changes would have “a ripple effect that will drive investment in all sectors of our economy and put pounds in the pockets of working people.”

This is a reprise of the City-driven growth of the New Labour era, when the financiers made merry without restraint until they crashed the whole economy in 2008.

Chaitanya Kumar of the New Economic Foundation think tank said: “It feels like Groundhog Day. 

“We’ve been here before, expecting the financial sector to do most of the heavy lifting in terms of growth.

“The 2008 crash and what followed should have been a very strong lesson to everybody in not completely letting the financial services sector off its leash: but that’s what we seem to be doing.

“I just haven’t seen any evidence that deregulating the financial services sector is going to create significant growth.”

Jesse Griffiths, chief executive of the Finance Innovation Lab charity, said that prioritising the needs of international financial firms over domestic needs had “simply not worked for the UK economy.

“Buying the City’s push for further deregulation risks derailing the government’s industrial strategy and increasing the risks of costly financial crises,” Mr Griffiths said. 

Under the measures, corporate transparency rules will be cut back to encourage more firms to list shares on the London Stock Exchange.

And savers with cash in low-interest accounts will be targeted with offers to invest their money in stocks and shares instead.

A scheme that encourages the provision of low-deposit mortgages for first-time buyers will also be made permanent.