PM Keir Starmer and chancellor Rachel Reeves do talk some rot (Image: Getty)
It hurts my ears. Plus it also confirms my suspicions that they don’t know what they’re doing. Because they keep banging on about generating economic growth, while doing everything they can to destroy it.
Yesterday, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey made it clear just how much damage Labour’s Budget has done.
He said the economy is stagnating as businesses respond to Reeves’ £40billion tax onslaught by raising prices and axeing jobs.
The economy was going but Bailey says he now expects “zero growth” in the final three months.
Personally, I think he’s being optimistic. The economy shrank in October and November. If it shrinks again in December, we’ll be halfway towards a recession.
When grilled on this, Starmer told MPs: “One of the biggest mistakes, I think, of the last 14 years was the idea that everything could be fixed by Christmas. It can’t.”
That’s odd, because everything can be destroyed by Christmas, as Starmer has shown.
When Labour took charge we had the fastest growth in the G7. Now it’s the second lowest, marginally ahead of Italy.
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Starmer then defended the Budget, arguing that Labour’s tax rises were necessary to stabilise the economy saying: “I’m strongly of the view that one of the things that’s held back growth is the fact that we haven’t had a stable economy.”
That isn’t a “strong” view. It’s a meaningless view. It makes no sense.
Rising inflation, falling growth, mounting job losses and striking farmers aren’t signs of stability, Sir Keir.
Forecasts suggest it’ll get worse on 2025. Starmer’s response was to serve up another dollop of word salad: “The forecasters are predicting on the back of the circumstances as they now are.”
That’s right, Sir Keir, that’s what forecasters do. And the circumstances as they are now are horrible.
Starmer then informed us that forecasters are “not able to take yet into account things that haven’t happened”.
Right again. Forecasts are by their nature about the future. Which can be reasonably described as “things that haven’t happened”.
Like Starmer’s first answer, this wasn’t an answer at all.
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So what about our highly qualified chancellor? This is where things get really horrible.
Yesterday, Rachel Reeves said: “We want to put more money in the pockets of working people, but that is only possible if inflation is stable and I fully back the Bank of England to achieve that.”
But inflation isn’t stable. It’s going up as a direct response to her own policies. Rather than backing the Bank of England, she’s sabotaged it.
Reeves added that improving living standards is her number one focus, but now they’re falling thanks to her.
She also claimed to be protecting “working people’s payslips from tax rises”, but in truth she’s done the opposite.
Office for Budget Responsibility reckons 80% of her employer’s national insurance hike will be passed onto workers in the form of lower wages and 20% to consumers via higher prices.
Ultimately, the cost will come from our payslips.
Pretty much everything Starmer and Reeves have done has sunk the growth and stability they claim to crave. No wonder they’re talking nonsense. It’s the only way to defend nonsense policies.