The PM and Chancellor appear to inhabit a distinct universe to the remainder of us.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves level a method, the actual world factors one other (Picture: Getty)
In Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves’s world, every thing is simply dandy. The price-of-living disaster is over, inflation is falling, the financial system is rising, housebuilding is booming and it’s all as a result of they’ve brilliantly fastened the foundations of the UK financial system. That’s the message they’re making an attempt to flog us as we speak. They’re hoping reckon it will spark a dramatic turnaround of their political fortunes. It will not.
There’s an issue. Voters inhabit the actual world, the place none of this matches their every day experiences. They don’t seem to be fools, and know what’s actually occurring. However that gained’t cease Starmer and Reeves. Again and again they’ve stretched the reality, arrogantly assuming we’ll swallow their lies. We’ve had grand pledges, slippery statistics and a conveyor belt of U-turns, a minimum of 15 and counting. Now they are going into overdrive.
Starmer and Reeves want a actuality examine. So right here’s a brisk audit of their headline claims in opposition to the arduous numbers.
First, Starmer claims inflation is falling due to his authorities’s “selections”. Sure, inflation dipped from 3.4% to three% in January. However in June 2024, the month earlier than Labour took workplace, inflation stood at simply 2%. Right this moment, it’s 50% increased than the speed they inherited. But Starmer claims to have reduce inflation. It is pathetic.
The PM even had the gall to say that “decrease meals costs” have been easing the cost-of-living disaster. That merely isn’t true. Meals costs aren’t “decrease”, they’re simply rising at a slower tempo than earlier than. Claiming in any other case is economically illiterate. And this man is our PM?
He additionally takes credit score for falling petrol costs, conveniently ignoring the truth that these are pushed by world oil provide and demand, not the UK authorities.
Her £26billion rise in employer’s Nationwide Insurance coverage, two large minimal wage hikes and beneficiant public sector pay hikes are all inflationary.
Starmer and Reeves additionally bang on about development. But the financial system grew simply 0.1% within the third quarter of final yr and 0.1% within the remaining quarter too. These are rounding errors. The financial system can be rising far quicker if Reeves hadn’t taxed it to a standstill.
Months after Labour took energy, I poured ridicule on their grandstanding declare they’d construct 300,000 houses a yr, a complete of 1.5 million over 5 years.
I mentioned housebuilders merely didn’t have the capability, and I used to be proper. Projections now recommend Britain will construct at most 167,000 houses a yr, little greater than half Starmer’s goal.
There’s truly been a 40% drop in housing begins in contrast with 2023, when the Tories have been in energy.
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Reeves talks about defending jobs, but unemployment has climbed from 4.1% to five.2% on her watch, including nearly half 1,000,000 to the dole queue. Youth unemployment is surging. It’s a catastrophe – and she or he ought to personal it. How dare Labour discuss of renewal whereas blighting the prospects of a complete technology?
Each politician talks up their achievements. These two have extra motive than most, as a result of they don’t have any actual achievements to talk of. The hole between rhetoric and actuality is widening. And voters, residing in the actual world, can not help however discover.
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