Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s big fat lie about having inherited ‘the worst economic circumstances since the Second World War’ continues to unravel.
Figures out yesterday showed unemployment falling and wage growth stabilising, raising hopes of another interest rate cut.
Inflation remains under control and GDP numbers due tomorrow are expected to show a healthy surge in growth.
Meanwhile the pound hit a 12-month high against the dollar last month, the FTSE is buoyant and UK manufacturing production increased for the third straight month in July.By comparison, Germany’s output shrank in the second quarter, putting Europe’s largest economy back on the brink of recession and dragging down the wider eurozone.
There are still major concerns for the UK. More than 9.4million people of working age are neither employed nor looking for work, despite there being more than 880,000 job vacancies.
Sir Keir Starmer says his government wants to restore honesty and integrity to our politics. Who does he think he’s fooling?
Of these, 2.8million are on long-term sick benefit, over half because of mental health issues. This huge drain on the welfare system must be addressed.
National debt is also far too high, due to furlough payments during the pandemic and energy subsidies – both of which Labour enthusiastically supported and wanted to extend.
But overall, the UK is in far better shape than almost any comparable country and the signs for the immediate future are positive.
So, will Ms Reeves stop making plainly bogus claims about having inherited a basket-case economy? Don’t count on it.
Labour has been building this doom-laden narrative since well before the election as an excuse for raising taxes, cutting allowances and axing infrastructure projects.
The party has already snatched away pensioners’ winter fuel allowance, cancelled hospital and road building programmes and, insanely, axed funding for a new national ‘supercomputer’, which would have helped speed up vital research.
In her October budget, she will almost certainly soak Middle England with a raft of previously undisclosed tax rises, justified by what she says is a ‘secret’ £22billion black hole left by the Tories in the nation’s finances. It’s sheer humbug.
As the head of the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies, Paul Johnson, puts it: ‘The Chancellor cannot honestly announce a series of tax rises, blame them on this hole that she has just discovered, and claim that she couldn’t have known pre-election that tax rises would be needed to maintain public services. That fact was obvious to all who cared to look.’
Sir Keir Starmer says his government wants to restore honesty and integrity to our politics. Who does he think he’s fooling?
Golden gravy train:
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, has pledged to respect taxpayers money. Will she keep it?
Another of the Chancellor’s promises around election time was: ‘I will not tolerate waste. I will treat taxpayers’ money with respect.’
If she wants to start fulfilling that promise, she might take a look at the latest Taxpayers’ Alliance analysis of the lavish ‘golden goodbyes’ paid to departing civil servants.
A total of £134.5million was spent on so-called exit packages in the year to April, exclusive of pension payments.
This was an average of £44,611 per person and a year-on-year increase of 45 per cent.
The biggest bung, to a Ministry of Defence bureaucrat, was upwards of £350,000.
With departmental budgets stretched, such generous payments will infuriate those in the private sector.
Most couldn’t dream of such largesse – yet they are forced to pay for others to receive it.
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