Reeves has folded like the Tin Foil Chancellor she is

Telegraph

a day ago

Rachel Reeves confirmed on Wednesday that she is a ' spend today, tax tomorrow ' Chancellor.
Her spending spree on the country's credit card has set us on a collision course with the autumn when more tax rises will hit working families' pockets hard. After a year of chaos, how can anyone take this Government seriously?
Rather than using the spending review as an opportunity to deliver secure public finances, the Chancellor is instead lurching from one disaster to the next. The cruel cuts to winter fuel payments, the £30 billion Chagos Islands surrender and the billions in no-strings-attached union handouts are all chickens that have come home to roost.
When the pressure is on, the self-styled 'Iron Chancellor' folds like the 'Tin Foil Chancellor' she really is. She promised to get borrowing down, but the deficit is up by 70 per cent on her watch. She pledged no new taxes rises, yet more are on their way. She pledged not to change pensioner benefits, then U-turned. Then U-turned again. The only consistent thing about her is her inconsistency.
Her own MPs, Cabinet ministers and Labour's trade union paymasters smell weakness. They know she's vulnerable and they will demand more money – and get it if they shout loud enough.
The Chancellor has boxed herself into a corner. We face an extra £200 billion of borrowing this Parliament compared with the last Conservative Budget, with £80 billion more in interest payments alone. We are almost a year in but no economic plan is forthcoming.
Our country is exposed. We have no room left to respond to shocks in global markets. Interest rates and mortgages are staying higher for longer because of her choices, as the OBR has said.
She trumpets the hundreds of billions in extra spending she has announced while on the other hand claiming to have fixed the public finances. It simply doesn't make sense.
She claims there is 'still work to do to ensure the sums add up'. That's not stability, it's uncertainty – the very last thing markets want to hear.
It is not just markets. Her abject failure means British families have seen inflation almost double, unemployment rise, growth stalling, debt interest soar and pensioners sacrificed. The country is worse off because of her choices.
What of the winter fuel U-turn? Last summer, pensioners were left out in the cold to avoid 'a run on the pound', as Labour's Lucy Powell put it. Now they claim they can afford to reverse it because they have fixed the economy and the finances – but economists are saying both are in a worse state since Labour came to office. Nothing's changed except the Government's credibility, which is vanishing.
Rock bottom confidence
There was nothing in her review restore rock bottom business confidence. Payrolls fell by over 100,000 last month alone. Unemployment is up 10 per cent since Labour took office. Only businesses create growth and jobs. But our Chancellor has not yet learnt that basic lesson of economics, her fingers planted firmly in her ears whilst the alarm bells are ringing.
Similarly, the first and most important duty of any Prime Minister is keeping the country safe. But even as the world is becoming more dangerous and a new axis of evils draws their battle lines, there was no further progress towards spending 3 per cent of GDP on defence, which Labour claim to be committed to.
They stood firm on the Chagos surrender, which is paying for tax cuts for Mauritians while we suffer, costing our country £30 billion to lease back our own land.
There is no urgency on the issues of the day. The Home Office budget too has been significantly hit by asylum costs, while illegal crossings soar.
Rather than point the finger at everyone else, the Chancellor should take responsibility and fix the problems she has created. Instead, the socialist's lazy embrace of high spending, more borrowing and higher taxes beckons – leaving our public finances dangerously vulnerable.
If we were in charge, we would take a different approach.
We wouldn't kill growth with tax rises and red tape. We'd restore confidence, focus on efficiency and productivity, and reform welfare to get people off benefits and into work.
At the end of the day, it's working people and businesses who will pay – with higher taxes, higher costs, and fewer opportunities. This Spending Review is unaffordable, and so is this Chancellor.