Reeveous harm
THE bad news for Chancellor Rachel Reeves — and the public finances — just keeps on piling up.
She was warned her jobs tax would increase prices and cost workers their livelihoods.
Bad news for Chancellor Rachel Reeves just keeps on piling up[/caption]
Now the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has confirmed that inflation is higher here than anywhere in the G7.
Growth is also weaker — a direct consequence of the National Insurance rise in last year’s Budget.
Downing Street’s favourite left-wing think tank reckons the way to sort out the mess is to put up income tax, raid pensions and make businesses pay more VAT.
Never mind that all of those measures would hammer growth.
Meanwhile, an extra 100,000 pensioners already face having their winter fuel allowance taken away from them.
The Government is borrowing more than ever to fund its splurges.
And left-wing MPs are insisting on more cash being blown on pet projects like lifting the two-child benefit cap.
Where are the promised spending cuts? Where is the serious welfare reform?
The Chancellor should end this doom loop of coming after our cash — and then wasting it.
Uber weak
MINISTERS still don’t seem to understand public anger about illegal migration.
Yesterday, the BBC reported how small boat migrants are getting free taxi rides between hotels, and to and from medical appointments.
When quizzed about an asylum seeker running up a £600 fare for being transported across the country, the response from Labour’s Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook was revealing.
“These are not ordinary citizens just jumping on a bus,” he said.
Indeed.
It’s only by arriving here illegally that you can expect free bed and board in a hotel, and a chauffeur-driven trip to the doctors.
If you’re a taxpayer, the politicans will take you for a very different kind of ride.
Good innings
CRICKET umpires — like football referees — are not meant to be the stars of the show.
Harold “Dickie” Bird turned all that upside down.
Somehow, a little nervy lad from Barnsley ended up becoming one of the most recognisable names in sport, sipping red wine with the Queen and selling over a million copies of his autobiography.
His was a uniquely eccentric British success story.
There was no one quite like Dickie.
