This economically illiterate Labour government has wreaked untold damage on Britain’s high streets, writes Giles Sheldrick.
Hope on the high street is fading fast and businesses blame Rachel Reeves (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Congratulations to Rachel Reeves, who has managed to extinguish life on Britain’s high streets in record time. Businesses were poleaxed after her eye-watering tax raid last year.
And her pre-Christmas Budget last month will do for many come the New Year. In 18 months she has lobbed hand grenade after hand grenade along once bustling centres of towns and cities. Labour cares not one jot about those trying to carve out a living in communities where the offering becomes more sparse with each passing week.
Under this government the cost of existing as a business is now almost impossible and it’s the reason why our economy is plunging off a cliff.
Ms Reeves and Labour’s welfare-friendly cabal of foaming-mouthed MPs have been told time and again that Labour’s hated Jobs Tax, crippling business rates, and suffocating employer costs will torpedo jobs, stall growth, and send inflation higher.
They didn’t listen then and they refuse to acknowledge it now as we stumble headfirst into an inevitable recession.
It is one of the reasons why a nationwide movement representing restaurants and pubs – the backbone of a hospitality sector hit hardest by this dogmatic government – has banned Labour MPs from stepping foot in their premises.
Publican Phil Thorley, 62, who heads a family business of 18 venues employing 400 people based in Kent, has been in the game for 44 years and says, without hesitation, life under Labour is the worst he has ever known.
Over the next three years his business rates are set to increase by 76%. And the story is the same across the UK.
He knows a thing or two about running viable venues and predicts there will be “blood on pub carpets” because the government is playing games with businesses, lives, and jobs.
Pubs and restaurants across the UK have banned Labour MPs in response to the Budget (Image: ITV News)
Unemployment now stands at 5.1 per cent, redundancies have surged to their highest level since the pandemic, and from April when staggering rate hikes kick in, a situation that currently looks bleak is set to turn irretrievably bad.
Take a walk along any high street in the UK and you will immediately get a sense of the depression lingering in the air.
Where there were once throngs of shoppers, there are few. Where there was once hope, there is now none.
Given the blood that has been shed as a direct result of Ms Reeves’ unshakable belief that the doers and go-getters should be fleeced to reward the idle, it is incredible that anyone possesses belief.
So we should be grateful that the Post Office, now headed by the former boss of National Lottery operator Camelot, thinks he can fan the glowing embers and ignite a fire extinguished by this economically incompetent government.
Neil Brocklehurst inherited an organisation whose reputation was in the gutter and was staffed by community-spirited individuals who stood wrongly accused of having their fingers in the till.
He, as the service he leads, epitomises the best of British. Service, dedication, and hard work. Provide a value for money offering and they will come, he says.
His message of hope – that the heart of communities across Britain can beat once more – is stark and stands diametrically opposed to the message being delivered by Ms Reeves and this government.
The reality is that under Labour no one will be handed a lifeline, not least the strivers.
Ms Reeves has stolen Christmas but, worse than that, she’s stealing hope, people’s jobs, and thier livelihoods as well.
