But I notice this – in 2022, when the Prime Minister was chancellor, he made this promise – “I can confirm, in 2024, for the first time the basic rate of income tax will be cut from 20p to 19p.” Having briefed that all week – that an income tax cut was coming – that promise is in tatters today. Although I have to note, that the Chancellor – when he was health secretary 10 years ago – promised to make the NHS paperless by 2018.
Taxes [remain at] a 70-year high.
Last year he announced 110 growth measures. He said we’ve “turned the corner” – and where are we now, Britain in recession. An economy smaller than when the Prime Minister entered Downing Street. The textbook definition of decline....after 14 years, who do they actually think feels better off?
Productivity is flat.
Mortgages – through the roof.
Housebuilding – off a cliff.
Worklessness – rising and rising.
Homelessness – never higher.
Sewage in our rivers.
Billions and billions of taxpayers’ money wasted.
£7bn by the Prime Minister on Covid fraud alone.
£500m on the Rwanda scheme that has achieved precisely nothing.
I can keep going – a railway line that will never reach our great Northern cities.
( In fact – might not even reach central London. )
Billions upon billions for a white elephant without a trunk!
While today we learn – taxpayers are picking up the bill for the Science Minister’s libel.
And all the time – one thing that is growing – the waiting lists in our NHS now nearly 8 million.
With no repudiation of the utterly discredited idea that economic growth is something the few gift to the many.
The longest period of stagnation Britain has seen since 1955.
It is time to break the habit of 14 years....And Labour are ready.
Keir Starmer's response to the Budget in March
