As the country sits on tenterhooks ahead of the Autumn Budget, an economics expert has issued a warning.
GB News expert Justin Urquhart Stewart took a brutal swipe at Rachel Reeves (Image: GB News)
GB News guest Justin Urquhart Stewart certainly didn’t mince his words as he took aim at Rachel Reeves ahead of her Autumn budget. The chancellor could deliver a blow to Labour’s core metropolitan voter base as part of a tax raid on properties worth over £2million, according to reports. She acknowledged that people are “angry at unfairness” in the British economy in a filmed address ahead of unveiling her second Budget on Wednesday (November 26) and pledged to “build a fairer, stronger, and more secure” country.
Among the heavily trailed measures, she is expected to announce an increase in council tax by revaluing 2.4million of the most valuable properties in bands F, G, and H. The move could see more than 150,000 properties charged higher council tax, with homeowners in Labour-voting parts of London among the worst hit, reports suggest.
Now, the economics expert has warned that Labour is focusing on the wrong areas to lower Britain’s debt. He explained: “There are only three main taxes in the country. You’ve got your national insurance, you’ve got your VAT, and you’ve got income tax; even corporation tax isn’t that large.
“Everything else after that you can put into those overall syntaxes, and you just end up mucking around with small amounts. So, we’re going to hear about a mansion tax – it won’t be called that, it’ll be something else – but even with the figures that they’re talking about, they’re only going to bring in a relatively small amount of money.
“It’s not going to solve the underlying problem. Also, she’s got her focus in the wrong direction. Instead of what penal issues do we have to have as opposed to what encouraging issues to grow the economy, i.e. focus on those areas where we know it will have an impact.”
When Eamonn asked why the politician isn’t brave enough to put the income tax up, the expert took the opportunity to brand the star “out of date” in a brutal swipe.
The Chancellor is set to announce the Autumn Budget later today (Image: AP)
He added: “The perfect thing she should have done is go back to that old-fashioned economist John Maynar Kains who after the Second World War said, ‘When facts change, my views change. What about you?’
“The facts have changed so she could turn around and say, ‘When I actually gave my original party budget, that was what I expecting to happen and now it’s completely different. I know what was in the manifesto, but things are different now.’
“But I suspect it’s probably the back benchers, ‘It’s out manifesto and we must stand by it’. It’s an old document; it’s out of date and so is she unless she realises that she should focus on the positives.
“There’s one word you need coming out of a budget: confidence. If you can do that then actually the tax bits sort of go to one side. If there’s confidence that if we spend more that actually companies invest more and overseas individuals come in.”
