Tough gig for Rachel Reeves as she attempted to defend the indefensible on the morning media round today. Her record tax-raising budget has been trashed across the board, and the OBR’s verdict is damning: Labour’s big-tax, big-spend approach won’t just stall growth—it will leave the economy weaker in the long run than it would have been under the Tories. Reeves tried to spin the grim figures on Sky News, insisting these “growth numbers are not the summit of my ambition”, promising growth would appear, not now, but in the next parliament. An optimistic bet that Labour will win the next election…
Her well-rehearsed lines last night about “wiping the slate clean” are already falling apart. When pressed by The Sun’s Never Mind the Ballots, Reeves refused to rule out further tax hikes not once, but nine times. Meanwhile, she told the BBC ,”This is not the sort of Budget we would want to repeat.” An admission of guilt…
And now, she’s finally conceded her National Insurance hike for employers could mean “wage increases might be slightly less than they otherwise would have been.” Translation: Labour’s budget will hit the ‘working people’ they promised to support. Labour as the party of “growth” and “working people” is officially for the birds. Shock…
Red Wall Labour backbencher Jonathan Brash told GB News that Starmer should resign:
“I’m completely fed up about it, and I think it’s got to the point now where I genuinely think that, as far as the Prime Minister is concerned, it’s not a case of if, it’s when.”