In an interview at the weekend, the Chancellor could barely hide her contempt for Nigel Farage and his economic policies.
Taking aim at the Reform UK leader, Rachel Reeves asked: ‘What’s his answer on the economy? How is he going to make working people better off? He hasn’t a clue.’
Wherever you stand on the viability or otherwise of Mr Farage’s plans, isn’t this the pot calling the kettle black?
Labour came into office promising to power economic growth and no tax increases for ‘working people’.
Instead, in just five months, Ms Reeves has hiked taxes by £40billion – including a rise in employers’ National Insurance that is hitting the very workers she claimed to want to protect – and killed off growth.
The Chancellor has the audacity to say she has ‘stabilised the economy’. Yet when the Tories left No 10, it was the fastest growing in the G7. Today, the picture is dismal.
Last week the Bank of England downgraded its growth outlook for the last three months of this year from 0.3 per cent to zero. The economy is even in danger of shrinking.
The Chancellor has hiked taxes by £40billion – including a rise in employers’ National Insurance that is hitting the very workers she claimed to want to protect
The Chancellor has the audacity to say she has ‘stabilised the economy’. Yet when the Tories left No 10, it was the fastest growing in the G7
Inflation and unemployment are rising. Job vacancies are vanishing. And business confidence is shot. A survey of nearly 1,000 firms by the CBI today is devastating.
Business chiefs directly blame the Chancellor’s ham-fisted Budget for the economy heading towards the ‘worst of all possible worlds’ – with companies cutting output and jobs, while putting up prices.
Terrifyingly, this is all before the increases in tax and the minimum wage take effect.
On entering the Treasury, Ms Reeves said that growth was her priority. So far, all she has done is to drive the economy towards the cliff-edge.
Prioritise our safety
The Christmas market is supposed to be a celebration of the festive season. But too often in recent years, these joyful gatherings have become a target for terrorists.
It is too early to say what motivated the Saudi man accused of the atrocity in Magdeburg, where five people were killed.
But the massacre itself – ploughing a car into shoppers and revellers – resembled an Islamist-style attack.
In its wake, security at Christmas markets in this country will inevitably be tighter.
People lay flowers and lit candles in front close to the Christmas market, where a car drove into a crowd on Friday evening, in Magdeburg, Germany
In Surrey, armed police have patrolled the festivities, something senior officers describe as ‘routine’. It is anything but.
That we need armed protection at such events – symbols of our Christian heritage – proves something has gone badly wrong.
We know Germany has been torn apart by its open-door approach to migration – especially from cultures which hold little respect for the Western way of life. This has allowed division and extremism to flourish.
We also know voters in Britain are increasingly alarmed by what many see as a damaging migration free-for-all.
When it comes to keeping the public safe from terrorism, ministers must challenge the source of these threats – not make us cower behind ever greater security.
Stop the shoplifters
Damning figures show nearly 700 thefts from shelves go unsolved every single day
The starting point for any successful system of law and order is that crime should not pay. Yet for too many shoplifters, it does.
Damning figures show nearly 700 thefts from shelves go unsolved every single day.
Police insist they take this problem seriously, but rarely bother responding to reports of gangs looting stores.
Turning a blind eye to offending, however low-level, undermines confidence in the law and allows more serious crime to prosper.
