Labour is killing aspiration with every passing week and hooking Britons up to be drip-fed by the state instead. Work hard to build a good life and you’ll be taxed to the hilt at every turn and again when you die. Down tools to bring the rail network to a grinding halt and you’ll be rewarded.
It’s no surprise Labour is targeting the private sector and favouring its union paymasters, even though it masqueraded as pro-business and a friend to the farmers at the election. But it’s particularly galling that they are cutting off the avenues that help ordinary people get on when many benefitted from the system themselves.
Take Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, a woman who had a difficult childhood but admirably worked her way to the top and raised a family at the same time. She was able to become a homeowner thanks to Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy and made a hefty £48,000 profit when she sold it.
But last week, announcing a shake-up of the policy, Ms Rayner set out how making it harder for others to benefit from the policy was the right thing to do. Writing about her decision, she stated: “I want people who have lived in their council home to still have the opportunity to own it, as I did. But today, the life-changing first step into social housing on affordable rent is a distant dream for far too many.”
Like climate change activists who travel the world but tell others not to, the move feels “do as I say, not as I do”, and is a kick in the teeth for those trying to get on the housing ladder.
Some 15% of Labour MPs were privately educated, twice the national average, but the party is determined to make it harder for others to follow in their footsteps.
The schools that are closing as a result of the Government’s decision to impose VAT on private education are not the ones attended by the wealthy and privileged. They are the small local independents that families can afford through scrimping, and going without cars and holidays. They want to give their sons and daughters the best possible opportunities.
Many of those parents are small business owners, creating jobs in the area, which in turn generates spending in other local firms. But Chancellor Rachel Reeves saw those businesses as a cashpoint to fund massive pay hikes for public sector workers.
So the local entrepreneur who took the risk of setting up a firm, who lies awake at night worrying about meeting the payroll when times are hard, who is constantly looking for ways to innovate and keep up with changing demands, is funding pay rises for trade unions who refuse to drop ludicrously outdated working practices.
Soon after being elected, Labour gave members of train drivers’ union Aslef a 14.25% increase over three years without securing any changes to so-called ‘Spanish practices’ in return. So while the small business owner is worrying about paying the bills, the train driver is free to demand their lunch break is restarted if a manager even so much as says hello to them.
Elsewhere across the rail network, employees are dispatched in teams to carry out tasks as small as changing a plug. And using new technology, such as Zoom, to communicate, can only be introduced if union negotiations are sought first.
You just need to look at how appallingly the Government has treated farmers. They are asset rich but cash poor. They only become rich if they sell the land, which means the end of the farm. Yet they get up in the middle of the night, weather-beaten by the British climate, because farming is in their blood and they want to pass on the tradition to their children.
What is the point of handing down the farm if this is no longer an option?
It is not that any of these groups need a reward from the Government. What they really do not need, or deserve, however, is to be penalised for working hard, for doing the right thing, for wanting to give their families the best possible opportunities and lives.
Meanwhile, disability benefits for working age adults are predicted to rise by a quarter of a million each year until the end of the decade, meaning 4.2 million people will be claiming personal independence payment by 2030.
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown presided over a massive expansion of the state that was difficult to reverse, one Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves intend on expanding still further.
By keeping people dependent on the Government for work or benefits, they are killing the incentives for resourcefulness and self-reliance. They are not only harming people’s ability to get on, but Britain’s future in an ever-competitive world.
