Every family knows what it means to live within your means. If you max out your credit card, the bills catch up with you. If you don’t pay your mortgage, you lose your home. These are basic facts of life that we all have to live by. But this Labour Government is behaving as if the rules don’t apply to them.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has whacked up taxes while maxing out the country’s credit card. The deficit is set to double in just five years. Investors are losing confidence in Britain because the Government has lost control of spending.
This is the direct result of Labour’s terrible decisions. Now, facing a growing black hole, Reeves’ instinct is to tax more and borrow more – locking Britain into a tax doom loop. High taxes weaken our growth, prompting higher borrowing, which requires higher taxes. A vicious cycle, entirely of Labour’s own making.
And where has all this money gone? Inflation-busting union pay rises. Ed Miliband’s pet energy company that won’t generate a single watt of power. A welfare bill spiralling out of control. None of it will make Britain stronger or more competitive. But every pound will be paid back by our children, with interest, for decades to come.
In 2010, the Conservatives inherited the largest peacetime deficit in British history. We were honest about the hard choices. We cut the deficit every year, reformed welfare, and put millions more people into work. And because we took those decisions, when Covid hit, we had the strength to save jobs and livelihoods.
Now that the pandemic is over, we have to return to living within our means. That means lower, simpler taxes that reward work and entrepreneurship. It means controlling welfare so that support only goes to those who truly need it, not fuelling a system out of control. And it means ending Labour’s tax doom loop before it drags Britain into another crisis.
That is why, in the national interest, I have made a serious offer to the Prime Minister. If he is prepared to get a grip on welfare spending and finally end this spiral of borrowing and taxation, he will have Conservative support.
Keir Starmer can cave to his Left-wing backbenchers and keep fuelling the tax doom loop. Or he can work with us to make the hard choices our country needs. For once, he should put the nation before his party.