I’ve wasted an awful lot of words on Rachel Reeves.
Rachel Reeves’s constant tax threats have worn us all down, and the economy too (Image: Getty)
I’ve spent the last 15 months picking apart every lousy idea the Labour Chancellor has inflicted on the UK. I’ve pulled apart all the two-faced fibs and half-baked left-wing economic theories she’s forced down our throats.
She’s taxed more, borrowed more, spent more and in doing so, sucked the life out of the economy. She hasn’t just made us poorer, she’s made us miserable too.
The moment Reeves and PM Keir Starmer started warning about “difficult decisions” in last year’s Budget, sentiment collapsed. Businesses stopped investing, consumers stopped spending. The economy died.
Her next Budget on November 26 threatens another dose of the same spirit-sapping medicine: property taxes, income taxes, pension taxes, bank taxes, gambling taxes, council taxes, dividend taxes, exit taxes and maybe even a VAT hike for good measure.
Even if half of them never happen, the mood has been set.
Worse is the way the left sneers at the pensioners, families and homeowners it hopes to fleece, by denigrating the hard work they’ve put in to build their wealth.
It’s been bleak since Labour took power. I hadn’t realised how bleak until yesterday.
I’ve railed and ranted at Reeves but beleaguered Tory party leader Kemi Badenoch brilliantly highlighted where the Chancellor has gone wrong in just 12 words.
Her rousing conference speech reminded Britain what it’s been missing, both under Labour and the old Tories too. A sense of hope.
Her message was simple: “Conference, the next Conservative government will abolish stamp duty on your home.”
That’s all it took. A senior politician actually promising to make life easier, more affordable and a little more liberating.
She crowned it with four more words that lit up the hall: “It will be GONE!”
Imagine that. A tax? GONE! Is that even possible? I thought they only went up.
The crowd went wild. For once, something to look forward to. And Badenoch chose her target well.
Stamp duty is a rotten tax. It locks people in homes they’ve outgrown, blocks first-time buyers, punishes home movers, traps downsizers and gums up the economy.
Her promise finally gives voters a glimpse of clear blue water, a tax cut Starmer and Reeves could never stomach themselves.
After 15 months of finger-wagging, pocket-picking misery from Reeves, it was a blast of fresh air. And shows her beaten down we’ve all been.
It’s been compared to George Osborne’s 2009 pledge to scrap inheritance tax, which spooked dour, tax-loving Gordon Brown into ducking an election. Osborne didn’t deliver. Badenoch can’t afford not to.
Scrapping stamp duty isn’t with risks. Vendors will hike prices. House prices could rocket as buyers return. And theoretically, it will cost the Treasury £15billion a year in lost tax receipts.
In practice, it won’t be anything like that.
By reviving the housing market Badenoch’s plan will boost builders, removals firms, plumbers, electricians, kitchen makers, bathroom makers, sofa makers and a host of businesses right along the property chain. This tax cut really could pay for itself.
The biggest shock is how fresh Badenoch’s plan sounded. After non-stop tax threats and anti-wealth rhetoric, her words cut through the gloom.
At a stroke she exposed Reeves as the growth-crushing, hope-sapping, wealth-draining, misery-inducing, tax-addicted fiscal disaster she is.
Suddenly, there’s light at the end of Labour’s long, dark tunnel. There’s a still a long way to go but at least we can see the way.
