Did you believe Keir Starmer? When he promised that council taxes would be frozen under Labour? When he said energy bills would actually fall? Or that the cost-of-living crisis would be solved if only we kicked the evil Tories out? In fact, did you believe any of that “change” baloney?
Plenty did. Plenty of ordinary, solid voters, who’d marked their cross against the Tory candidate in 2019, were fooled into voting Labour last year by the crazy promises on offer and a belief that Keir Starmer offered “integrity”. And those that couldn’t quite bring themselves to vote Labour chose to stay at home, which, frankly, had pretty much the same result. They all believed that Labour would offer something different, new and better. Crikey, how must they be feeling today? Yes, today especially. Terrible Tuesday, they’re calling it. The first day of Awful April.
Because it’s now that energy bills go up, water bills go up, council tax bills go up, the TV licence goes up, the jobs tax kicks in, stamp duty goes up, car taxes go up, the capital gains tax goes up and yet more people get dragged into higher rates of income tax.
It’s today when the finances of millions of Britons take an absolute hammering. According to a YouGov poll, 56% of us say we’ve already “had to make cuts”, and 61% are “expecting to soon”. And it’s not even a year, yet, since Labour got in. Some “change”.
Well, at least we can be thankful the sun’s shining. But it’s not shining on Keir Starmer or Rachel Reeves. The Prime Minister’s approval ratings have started collapsing again after a brief “Ukraine bounce”. As for the Chancellor, she’s now as unpopular as Kwasi Kwarteng was. Yup, that bad. (And I don’t blame Kwarteng, I blame Truss.)
The problem for Reeves? Where do you start? Three things stand out. First, it’s that over-promise then under-deliver deceit that has plagued Labour since July last year.
Secondly, Reeves shot herself in the foot by exaggerating her CV and taking freebies. Thirdly, her budget last autumn, somehow purporting to be pro-growth, was actually the most growth-destroying piece of financial management, if you can call it that, in living memory.
She’s now caught between two stools. On the one hand, her entry-level cuts have devastated Labour’s lefty MPs, who still apparently believe that the big state has unlimited cash to splash and that private enterprise can be taxed to high heaven.
On the other hand, she’s too lefty herself to slash the state by anything like the amount required to kickstart growth. So, we trundle along with low or no growth, higher taxes and bills, and inflation that continues to bust the Bank of England’s targets. It’s Rachel’s triple-whammy.
It’s often said, with good reason, that once a Chancellor departs with acrimony, the Prime Minister’s days are numbered. Not just Truss and Kwarteng. Think Thatcher and Lawson, Major and Lamont, Johnson and Sunak.
Starmer, I’m sure, knows that. But he also knows that Reeves is out of her depth and is as responsible as he is for Labour’s plummeting fortunes.
Perhaps he’s planning to get her to do all the unpopular stuff this year, then fire her. Perhaps she’ll go before the summer. Or stagger on to next year. Anyone’s guess.
But it’s now crushingly unlikely she’ll stay in Number 11 till 2029. Well, whenever she leaves, she’ll be able to put “UK’s best ever female Chancellor” on her CV. And nobody will be able to argue.
