Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride says that the Chancellor has blamed everything from Brexit to the weather for her mistakes.
Rachel Reeves has been slammed by the Tories’ Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride (Image: Getty)
A year ago today, Kemi Badenoch was appointed Leader of the Conservative Party. In that time we’ve seen Kemi lead with courage, conviction, and a clear vision for Britain.
This Tuesday also marks one year since I became Shadow Chancellor. I’ve seen first hand just how much damage Labour can do in just 12 months.
When Rachel Reeves picked up the keys to the Treasury, she promised the British people she wouldn’t raise taxes. “There is nothing in our plans that require any further increases in taxes,” she said. “We certainly won’t be increasing National Insurance.”
Those weren’t throwaway lines. They were deliberate, rehearsed, and designed to make taxpayers and businesses believe Labour could be trusted with their money. But like so many Labour promises before, that pledge has been dumped.
Within six months of taking office, Reeves delivered a £40 billion tax raid – including a £25 billion jobs tax, the biggest single tax rise in more than 30 years. After swearing blind she’d “wiped the slate clean” and wouldn’t “come back for more,” she’s now doing exactly that.
Landlady Reeves is reaching once again for the nation’s wallet – before she’s even got her own house in order.
Her excuses are always the same: Brexit, living within our means, the weather – anything but her own choices. But this isn’t about events, it’s about decisions. And Rachel Reeves keeps making the wrong ones.
She’s allowed spending to spiral, failed to reform a bloated welfare system, and piled the bill onto hardworking families already struggling with soaring prices. Every time the sums don’t add up, she blames someone else – and every time, it’s you who foots the bill.
Mel Stride has laid out what the Tories would do differently to revive the economy (Image: Getty)
Let’s be clear: if Rachel Reeves breaks her word again, she must go. Britain deserves a Chancellor who keeps their promises, not one who treats taxpayers like a cash machine.
Under Reeves, the numbers speak for themselves. Inflation has doubled. Debt has ballooned. Borrowing is up. Spending is up. Taxes are up. Business confidence has hit a record low. And even Sir Keir Starmer seems to have lost faith – quietly setting up his own Treasury operation inside No 10.
Labour faces charges of hypocrisy – lecturing everyone else about responsibility while breaking every rule in the book themselves.
In opposition, Starmer was always quick to call for others to go. Yet Rachel Reeves stays put – proof that Starmer’s standards are ones he cannot live by himself.
Once again, Labour acts as if the rules apply to everyone except them. Government borrowing has already hit £100 billion in just six months – the highest on record outside the pandemic.
Labour plans to spend nearly half a trillion pounds more over this Parliament than the plans they inherited. There’s no pandemic now, no energy crisis, no global emergency – just reckless political choices never put to the electorate.
The result? Inflation stuck above target. Interest rates staying higher for longer. Small businesses on their knees. Reeves’s “jobs tax” alone has cost 165,000 jobs so far – half of them in hospitality.
Mel Stride says Kemi Badenoch is the woman to revive the economy (Image: Getty)
Wetherspoon’s boss Tim Martin says it’s costing his company £1 million a week. Even Labour cheerleaders like Gary Neville admit it’s “a mistake”.
And now, the Chancellor is eyeing up a new target: Britain’s savers. Reports suggest she’s considering slashing Cash ISA allowances – a direct hit on people who’ve done the right thing, put money aside, and planned for their futures.
Enough is enough – and my message to Rachel Reeves is clear. Reduce government spending and you don’t need to break your promise and raise taxes again.
At our Party Conference, I set out a clear alternative: £47 billion in achievable savings by reducing the civil service, reforming welfare, and living within our means.
We’d scrap stamp duty to help families move, abolish business rates for thousands of pubs and shops on our high streets, and introduce a First Job Bonus so young workers keep the first £5,000 of National Insurance they pay to put towards a home.
That’s how you build growth – not by taxing success, but by rewarding it. Not by hammering jobs, but by backing them. Not by punishing ambition, but by unleashing it.
After one year as Shadow Chancellor, I know Britain deserves better than this. Reeves must get her own house in order before she levels more taxes on hard-up Brits.
If she breaks her promises again, she must go. Because the country deserves better – and only the Conservatives, under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership, have the backbone and the plan to get Britain back on track.