Rachel Reeves looks set to grab another £30billion in taxes to balance the books. That’s on top of the £40billion she imposed last year.
Only Labour’s diehard class warriors think this is a good idea. Rather than boosting growth, last year’s Budget raid crushed it. Reeves also destroyed jobs, wrecked companies, revived inflation, drove up debt and borrowing costs, and made everyone terrified about what’s coming next.
As the economy flatlines, the last thing we need is another tax bloodbath, but that’s what we’re getting.
The blow will fall pensioners and homeowners with a spot of wealth to their names. She’ll claim she’s attacking the rich in the name of equality, but all she’s doing is making everybody equally poor.
Rachel Reeves is already the most unpopular Chancellor since records began. Soon she’s going to be even more hated, and she knows it.
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a politician with an unpopular policy to sell is in want of scapegoat. Now she’s found one.
Her choice is surprising. So far, she’s blamed all failures squarely on the Tories. That’s the oldest trick in the book.
Reeves adopted this tactic immediately after the election, banging on about the £22billion “black hole” she inherited from the Tories.
Unfortunately for Reeves, it’s no longer a good idea to remind voters about the black hole. It took the Tories 14 years to create it. Reeves doubled it to more than £40billion in just 14 months.
There’s another reason blaming the Tories won’t work. Voters don’t care about them anymore. The real threat to Labour is Reform UK, now racing ahead in the polls. So she’s going to blame Nigel Farage instead, according to The Times. Farage? Seriously?
This is so dishonest. Reeves is the Chancellor. It’s her Budget. She’s the one hiking taxes. She could have gone for spending cuts, but won’t.
So for her to pin the blame on someone else is a cheap trick. Blaming Nigel Farage is cheaper still.
Farage has never held office. Never delivered a Budget. Never hiked taxes. He certainly can’t be blamed for the bungles of this government, or the last five, because he had no power to prevent or correct them.
Farage did campaign for Brexit, but he didn’t negotiate it, draw up post-Brexit policy or bear responsibility for the consequences.
It’s a hopeless strategy but Reeves doesn’t care. Nor does PM Keir Starmer, who’s backing it. They hope it will cheer Brexit-loathing liberals.
Instead, it might backfire. Voters are the ones who decided we should leave the EU, not Farage. Reeves should say that outright. Not sure it would go down well though.
The Budget will be a bloodbath. Voters will know exactly who to blame and it isn’t Nigel Farage.
