Rachel Reeves and Ed Miliband should be boosting the economy, not sinking it (Image: Getty)
Reeves bangs on about “hard-wiring growth into every Cabinet decision” yet she destroys it with every decision she takes. The Chancellor is a one-woman growth destruction machine, and here’s the latest example.
Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca is literally the UK’s biggest company. Yesterday, it withdrew plans for a £450million expansion of its vaccine manufacturing plant in Speke, Merseyside.
And Reeves was the reason.
Former Tory Chancellor set up the growth-generating deal last March, tempting AstraZeneca with a £90million sweetener.
Reeves wasted months trying to haggle that down to £40million, and Astra has had enough.
It pulled out in frustration at her ludicrous antics, blaming “the timing and reduction of the final offer compared to the previous government’s proposal”.
AstraZeneca’s chief executive Pascal Soriot, arguably the FTSE 100’s best, previously said the plant was “absolutely ready to go”.
It’s certainly gone now.
A furious Hunt labelled it a “massive own goal”.
By trying to save £50million, Reeves cost the country £450million of investment in an area crying out for high-quality jobs.
It’s another massive humiliation for the Chancellor, .
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In a further blow to her credibility, this happened just two days after Reeves highlighted life sciences as a key growth sector, citing… AstraZeneca!
As if the Merseyside scheme was her brainwave, when she was the one who torpedoed it.
Unfortunately, Reeves is not alone in waging war on British business.
Labour’s Energy Secretary Ed Miliband is now lobbing grenades at the UK’s second-largest company, FTSE 100 oil and gas giant Shell.
Shell bosses are up in arms as Miliband hands climate zealots a huge victory over the Jackdaw gas field and Rosebank oil field, .
These projects would bolster Britain’s energy independence create tens of thousands of jobs and bring billions in tax revenues. As I warned yesterday, .
This won’t just cost us our largest untapped oil field. It may also cost us our second biggest company, as Shell gives up and seeks a listing in the US New York Stock Exchange instead.
It would get a much friendlier reception there. And its valuation would instantly soar by tens of billions of pounds. Or rather dollars.
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Losing our second biggest company would deal yet another devastating blow to Britain’s reputation as a place to do business.
Miliband doesn’t care. He’d happily destroy the UK economy in a bid to fulfil .
These are just the last assaults in Labour’s relentless anti-business campaign.
Its tax raids and regulatory overreach are driving investors away, crushing enterprise and ensuring the UK remains a no-go zone for corporate growth.
Firms are already laying off staff thanks to Reeves’s Budget National Insurance hikes, while insolvencies continue to rise at an alarming rate.
This isn’t growth. Its destruction. And it’s being driven by Reeves’s incompetence and Miliband’s zealotry. And we’ll ultimately pay the price.