How many times during and since the election campaign did you hear Labour claim it would pay for its ambitious plan for the UK by growing the economy?
Not only did this prove to be untrue, when they raised taxes by a record £40billion during the Budget, including an explicit tax on working people via the increase to employer’s National Insurance – but today’s GDP figures prove Labour does not have the slightest clue about growth.
Labour has exhausted its inheritance card at every turn.
It has blamed the Tories for all of its decisions, whether it was tax rises, increased Government borrowing, even releasing violent criminals.
Jacob Rees-Mogg says Keir Starmer is responsible for crashing the economy
GB News
Early Labour played the game of doom and gloom so intensely that it itself spooked the markets and led to a crisis of confidence.
But it can no longer play this game. The economic inheritance for Labour was 0.7 per cent growth in the first quarter of 2024, and 0.4 per cent in the second quarter.
But Labour – the self-proclaimed adults in the room, the purveyors of Sir Keir-enomics.
The people who vowed never to play fast and loose with the country’s finances have delivered 0 per cent growth for the first quarter in charge, with an actual decline in GDP per capita, which is even more important as that means every individual in the country is getting poorer.
Indeed, early estimates suggest that in October, the first month in the fourth quarter of this year, the economy contracted.
Which means, if true, Labour has actually shrunk the economy since taking power.
All of this stems from Labour’s disastrous, anti-growth, anti-business and indeed anti-working people Budget.
If you want to stimulate economic growth, you can’t make it more expensive to employ people, which is what Labour’s done. You can’t impose inheritance tax on businesses as Labour has done, and you can’t chase wealthy people out of the country by abolishing the non-dom regime, as Labour has done.
And amidst all of this, the Prime Minister has decided to take holiday.
Fair enough. I think that’s deserved, and politicians ought to have some holiday.
So we wish the Reverend Starmer a very Merry Christmas, but he is, unfortunately, the man who crashed the economy.