She took blows from three fronts yesterday, and there is plenty more to come. Serious establishment figures are aghast at how she’s trashing the UK economy, and they’re no longer holding back.
These aren’t just political opponents with an axe to grind. These are financial heavyweights who care about the state of the country and are horrified at what Labour has done to it in just over a year.
They’ve got good reason. Taxes have soared, spending is spiralling, jobs are being destroyed, unemployment is climbing and growth has flatlined.
And now a string of prominent figures have made it absolutely clear where the blame lies. With last year’s £40billion Budget tax blitz.
Now Reeves is plotting a potentially bigger tax grab in her autumn Budget on November 26, with between £30billion and £50billion of extra levies being lined up. It’s a horror story in the making.
Labour has tried to pin the blame on the Tories, global turbulence, anything, but it’s now clear where the fault lies. With the Chancellor
Yesterday, the Bank of England (BoE) came out swinging.
BoE governor Andrew Bailey is nicknamed the “turtle”, because he moves slowly and rarely sticks his neck out. Well, he stuck it out yesterday, while sticking it to Rachel Reeves.
This was no mock turtle attack. It was the real thing.
In a letter to the Chancellor, Bailey blamed her £25billion national insurance raid on businesses for today’s toxic mix of stubborn inflation, rising joblessness and punishing interest rates.
He said the hike in employer contributions and the jump in the minimum wage had delayed the fall in inflation forcing the BoE to hold rates at 4%.
All Reeves could say in response was that she recognised people were still struggling and promised to keep costs down. Empty words.
Normally, big business leaders keep their heads down rather than be drawn into politics, but now they can’t stay quiet.
In recent weeks, the bosses of Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Marks & Spencer have warned Reeves is wrecking the economy. Yesterday it was the turn of Next chief executive Simon Wolfson, and he wasn’t holding back.
Wolfson, one of the longest-serving chief executives in the FTSE 100, warned we face years of “anaemic growth” as Labour strangles the economy with high taxes and red tape.
He accused the government of living beyond its means and said higher taxes and heavy-handed regulation were crushing competitiveness.
Wolfson said a second Budget tax rate would hit the economy, and destroy even more jobs, particularly for young workers.
Even the normally sober Institute for Fiscal Studies broke cover yesterday with a warning of the disaster to come. It warned that Reeves is banking on a productivity miracle to keep the books balanced. If that doesn’t happen, she’ll face another £18billion gap in her plans.
One of the first things Reeves did was throw billions at public sector pay deals without linking them to productivity. Now we’re all paying the price.
The establishment is coming out of its shell because it can’t believe what it’s witnessing. Yes, Reeves inherited a mess from the Tories. But now she’s dug an even deeper hole for herself, and won’t stop digging.