Rachel Reeves must focus on cuts to the public sector to ease the crippling burden on families and firms
Blame game
IT is absurd for the Chancellor to even hint that Donald Trump is to blame for our economy going into reverse in January.
It’s true his ignorance about tariffs is upending global stock markets.
But the damage here was done before he was re-elected President.
Labour inherited from the Tories an economy which topped the G7 growth table and was, according to the ONS, “going gangbusters”.
October’s Budget killed it stone dead.
Worse, the most damaging measures, dramatic tax hikes for businesses, only come in next month.
Two weeks before her Spring Statement, Rachel Reeves is in a hole.
The Chancellor must face down her backbenchers and make meaningful cuts to the public sector.
She cannot raise taxes further without triggering recession.
Instead she must focus on cutting them and easing the crippling burden on families and firms.
Law’s an ass
WE’RE sure plenty in Downing Street are aghast at the exploitation of human rights laws to keep foreign criminals and failed asylum-seekers from being deported.
Some are doubtless outraged that hyper-liberal judges cite Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights — the right to a family life — to keep twisted and dangerous individuals here.
But the idea this is a loophole to be closed is nonsense. It’s the law we adopted.
And the bigger problem for No10 officials is that our two leading left-wing human rights lawyers are the Prime Minister and Attorney General.
The latter, Richard Hermer, considers the ECHR the cornerstone of civilisation and assured the court Starmer’s Britain will stick slavishly to its every edict.
The PM may be starting to think more radically about it.
But he’ll have to fire Hermer to even begin to free us from this foreign court’s stranglehold.
Wheels are off
AS long as Britain continues as a taxpayer-funded welcome centre for all-comers we should not be surprised at the continued migrant influx nor our dire financial straits.
We spend millions a day housing illegal small-boat arrivals in hotels, on top of feeding and clothing them.
Even that’s not enough for local councillors — including, incredibly, in Kent, which bears the brunt of this scandal.
Families there struggling to afford driving lessons for their own teenagers are funding FREE ones for migrants.
Tens of thousands of pounds from their soaring council tax bills pay for tuition and tests for those granted asylum.
So many politicians consider taxpayers a cash machine from which they can withdraw without limit, distributing their largesse among anyone who turns up.
“Soft touch” no longer nearly covers it.