The PM and Chancellor need to keep their focus on voters, not MPs (Image: Getty Images)
Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are clinging to power, trying to pacify Labour MPs and the markets while taking taxes to an all-time high. Their attention is focused on the two groups who can force them out of office – international bond traders and MPs who see the party they love heading for disaster.
A Government is in trouble when its two most senior members chalk it up as a win if they live to fight another day. When they worry more about their backbenchers than the voters then their time in power is hurtling towards an end.
The Prime Minister and Chancellor arrived in Government on the back of a manifesto promise to deliver “change” with a colossal majority and a host of urgent tasks. If ever, for example, there was a time for a Labour Government to seize the challenge of creating a world-class social care system while ending welfare dependency, this is it.
Tony Blair relished dragging his party out of its comfort zone but this Government has curled up on the Left. It is as if it is determined to fulfil every stereotype of a tax and spend Labour Government.
The freezing of the income tax thresholds for another three years beyond 2028 will enrich the Treasury by £12.7billion by 2030-31. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) warns average disposable income will grow by “only” 0.5% over the next half decade.
For millions of Britons, things won’t get better. The Chancellor has failed to give the country reason to hope for anything better than – as the IFS puts it – “lacklustre economic growth” and “stagnating living standards”.
Sir Keir and Ms Reeves must know they cannot win a general election if this is the best they offer. The question is whether they still think they have a shot at staying in power.
Tom Smith of the Tony Blair Institute said the Budget “underlines the urgent need for a bold plan for growth”. In other words, Labour doesn’t have one.
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown took pride in reform (Image: Getty)
The temptation for the PM and the Chancellor will be give up on the next election and instead funnel cash into the Left’s favourite causes so they can claim they used their time in power to do some good.
But if prosperity dies on their watch future generations of Britons will be denied world-class health services and education, our armed forces will face a dangerous world underfunded, and ambitious young people will leave the UK in search of fulfilling work.
To avoid such a grim obituary, Sir Keir and Ms Reeves must put prosperity and reform at their heart of their Government; they must Britons as citizens to be served rather than taxpayers to be squeezed.
