Tax rises would be disaster for Labour

CHANCELLOR Rachel Reeves took office promising a new era of growth and wealth creation.

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Instead, she has presided over economic stagnation, falling employment, squeezed living standards and mounting debts. The desperate weakness of her position led Reeves to take the highly unusual step this week of delivering an early morning, televised briefing which her team claimed would “set the context” for the tough Budget she is planning.

But the much-hyped event was a shambolic anticlimax, where empty slogans were matched by downbeat rhetoric and incoherent verbiage. Beyond the gloomy waffle, however, her aim was clear. She wants to pretend the government has been forced into major tax hikes because of a host of factors beyond its control, including conflicts abroad, Brexit, President Trump's tariffs, and the legacy of Tory austerity.

But such excuse-making will not wash. The real cause of the present meltdown is Labour's inability to live within its means. Bills for welfare, immigration, public sector pay and the NHS are all soaring, while the government, hamstrung by left-wing sentimentality and its links with the trade unions, refuses to contemplate restraint or reform.