Crisis? What crisis? Life under Labour for the past 18 months has been about broken promises and U-turns, writes Giles Sheldrick.
Starmer and Labour have been an unmitigated disaster says Giles Sheldrick (Image: Getty)
After 18 months in power these words are the only available to sum up this shambolic Labour government: broken promises, U-turns and lies.
First, there was the screeching about-turn on the winter fuel payment for millions of pensioners, a cruel, vindictive and ill-conceived attack on this country’s OAPs.
Then there was the decision to hold a statutory inquiry into grooming gangs – having previously said a forensic inquiry wasn’t necessary.
And then there was the climbdown on benefits to avert a rebellion from Labour’s screeching, welfare-welcoming backbench MPs. The upshot is we now have a benefits bill so swollen, and with so little incentive to get off the sofa, it will surely bankrupt Britain.
Finally, the pre-Christmas U-turn on the “farms tax” has shown this government for what it is: incompetent, dithering and without any direction.
It was classic Labour, a catastrophic failure to judge the mood of the public. Or to listen. And then months to correct the course.
In the 14 months since last year’s Budget ministers resolutely refused to budge on the imposition of 20% inheritance tax. Then they caved in.
Taken together, these seismic missteps simply show this is a government out of touch and out of control. Under Sir Keir Starmer it has zero credibility.
Life under Labour has been miserable for millions says Giles Sheldrick (Image: Getty)
When Sir Keir took office he told the British people there was a “crisis of confidence in our political system’s ability to deliver any change”.
He said: “It is not just sleaze and scandal that have eroded trust. Just as corrosive has been the inability of politicians to keep promises made to the British people.”
As well as these weasel words, and catalogue of U-turns, there have been barefaced lies.
Written in Labour’s manifesto were cast iron promises not to raise income tax, National Insurance, or VAT.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves dumped £40bn of tax rises on Britain in her first Budget last year, but said it was a “one off” raid never to be repeated.
Yet last month she returned to deliver tax-raising measures worth £26bn by the end of the parliament, largely hammering hard workers and businesses to pay for those who can’t or simply won’t work.
In 1978 – some 47 years ago – Labour PM James Callaghan said: “I don’t think other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos.”
It was Britain’s Winter of Discontent and paraphrased as: “Crisis? What crisis?”
Just four months later he resigned as Labour lost the 1979 General Election to Margaret Thatcher.
Little has changed and today Britain faces an existential crisis as it is governed by a flip-flopping and economically illiterate government with no credibility.
This is the reality of life under Starmer and company and it makes for a particularly bleak winter.
