Last year the Chancellor raised taxes by £40 billion and yesterday she came back to snatch a further £26 billion after promising to do no such thing.
There can be no better example of Labour’s economic mismanagement than yesterday’s Budget. Things were already unimaginably bleak for most of Britain and us all and, lo and behold, it just got a whole lot worse.
In short it was a bonanza for those on benefits paid for through taxpayers’ incomes, pensions, property, and savings. So petrified was the Chancellor at another potentially fatal rebellion from the Labour backbenches that she scrapped the two-child benefit cap in a move that increases handouts to 560,000 families by an average of £5,310.
It means Britain’s welfare bill is set to rise to £406 billion over the next five years as a sicknote culture driven by an exponential rise in claims becomes the norm.
Now the dust is settling it is clear, as many predicted, the Budget was a boon for the workshy as Labour takes the country back to the 1970s.
It laid bare how, despite the UK being effectively broke, this government is determined to hammer into submission those with whom they are ideologically opposed.
Last year Ms Reeves raised taxes by £40billion – and yesterday she came back to snatch a further £26billion – despite promising she would do no such thing.
Under Labour the tax take will be 38% of national income by the end of this parliament – the highest of all time.
The sobering upshot is no government in 50 years has rinsed the public for more tax than Labour under Starmer and Reeves.
And there is no growth to be seen.
In short it was a socialist Budget with workers subsidising welfare.
Rachel Reeves was told her Budget was a bonanza for those on benefits (Image: Ian Vogler )
Rachel Reeves was told to do the decent thing and resign after breaking promises (Image: Ian Vogler )
Droning Ms Reeves – a tortured orator at the best of times – repeatedly fluffed the lines of a scripted speech blaming Brexit and the Tories for “starving the economy of investment” during a painful performance in which she claimed she was delivering stability and economic growth.
By 2030/31 one quarter of the working population will be paying higher or top rate tax.
In a savage attack on the Chancellor’s state handouts splurge Tory leader Kemi Badenoch told her, “woman to woman”, she was “utterly incompetent” and should resign for breaking every single one of her promises. Few today will disagree with that.
The brutal assessment of her “Budget for benefits” left Ms Reeves humiliated.
It was an extraordinary climax to a day that started with a blunder of historic portions when all the excruciating details were leaked ahead of time.
Shortly before midday – ahead of Prime Minister’s Questions and hours before it was meant to be published – the deceit was laid bare when the Office for Budget Responsibility published its market sensitive forecast, exposing all the gruesome Budget details in full because a Nervous Nellie with an itchy trigger finger pressed “send to all” prematurely.
It was a calamitous mistake but one that served simply to reinforce this Government’s propensity for cack handedness and incompetence.
Ms Reeves was left humiliated before she started and not for the first time.
She has spent a ruinous run at the Treasury flip-flopping while pretending to keep her cards close to her chest.
Yesterday they were laid out on the table for all to see and life got immeasurably harder.
The OBR described its monumental cock up as a “technical error”.
And while it might not have been a mistake of Ms Reeves’ making, it just underlines what most are starting to realise – this is a chaotic Government way out of its depth.
Ms Reeves said the leak was “deeply disappointing and a serious error”.
The same could apply to her Budget which rewards shirkers, punishes strivers and savers, and leaves Britain depressingly stuck in reverse gear.
