Starmer British Labour Government Throws Away the Manifesto on which it was Elected, By Richard Miller (Somewhere in Europe)
It is not just the creation of a 1984 totalitarian tyranny that has occurred in the wake of the UK immigration protests, that has characterised the Starmer British Labour government; in fact, they have thrown away the manifesto of policies that they were elected on in record time, in fact having no intention of keeping to any such promises. Starmer traded upon the British people's lack of trust of the Conservative government, and in every speech, he promised a government which could be trusted. And the voters believed it, or at least a minority, while others wanted to just punish the Conservatives, who did not care a jot. There was an explicit promise of no new taxes, but now once in government, taxes on capital gains, pensions, and inheritance, as well as stamp duty and council tax, are set to go up. Winter fuel payments will be cut, which will adversely affect pensioners and the poor, who face the prospect of freezing to death in the coming winter.
But there are billions of pounds to give away to overseas climate aid, to further the cult of climate change alarmism. Along those lines, there will be a ban on licencing of North Sea oil and gas drilling, ensuring more energy unreliability. And to top it all off, wind turbines and solar farms will now populate the once green English country side.
The moral of this story, repeated everywhere, is not to trust the mainstream political parties.
"On the morning of July 5 Sir Keir Starmer stood outside No 10 and addressed the nation. Even flinty-hearted Tories may have been momentarily moved.
His short speech marked the beginning of a new age, and the end of the Conservatives' final undignified months in which incompetence, sleaziness and corruption combined in a fatal brew.
The new Prime Minister spoke of the need for 'trust', as he had also done earlier that morning, after being declared the runaway winner in his North London constituency.
Now he referred to a lack of trust as a 'wound', and declared that Labour would 'carry the responsibility of your trust, as we rebuild the country'.
Trust and integrity were catchwords not only of Labour's election campaign but also of Sir Keir's appeal to the British people from the days when Boris Johnson was prime minister. He has presented himself as a trustworthy, dependable politician devoted to public service, and in every way morally superior to his Tory counterparts.
What do we think of his sales pitch now?
I ask because no government in recent history has in such a short period of time veered so far from the manifesto on which it was elected. Almost every policy announcement – and there have been many in six action-packed weeks – has either come as a complete surprise, or gone further than the electorate could reasonably have expected.
During the campaign Sir Keir adopted a super-cautious 'Ming vase strategy' characterised by a terror of revealing his real plans to voters, who might have been put off by the truth. As soon as July 5 passed, the Ming vase was allowed to crash to the floor. Labour emerged in its true colours.
The most abrupt departure from the party's painstakingly calculated approach has been over taxation. Labour insisted on the hustings that there wouldn't be any increase in income tax, National Insurance and VAT. It 'would not raise taxes on working people'.
On May 28, in her first speech of the campaign, Rachel Reeves, now Chancellor, was specific. She promised that if Labour won the election there would be 'no additional tax rises' beyond those she had already announced for private school fees and non-doms.
Now leaks abound that some taxes on capital gains, pensions, and inheritance, as well as stamp duty and council tax, will go up when Ms Reeves unveils her budget on October 30. Many of the casualties will certainly be 'working people'.
The Chancellor has admitted – as she did not during the campaign – that taxes will have to rise, telling a podcast on July 30: 'I think we will have to increase taxes in the Budget.'
Is all this in keeping with Sir Keir Starmer's undertaking to restore trust? Is it a demonstration of integrity to introduce draconian tax increases that were deliberately concealed in the campaign? The people will judge. Many may think it a cynical deception.
The dishonesty spreads far beyond taxation. Three weeks ago, Rachel Reeves announced the abolition of the winter fuel allowance for all but the very poorest pensioners. Nearly ten million people will be affected. The Chancellor believes the measure will save the Exchequer £1.4 billion a year, though some experts doubt this.
Nowhere in Labour's manifesto is there the slightest hint that pensioners would be targeted. Ms Reeves herself, admittedly seven years ago, pledged unequivocally to defend winter fuel payments.
And as recently as last November, her deputy at the Treasury, Darren Jones, was angry when it was falsely rumoured that the Conservative government was about to get rid of them. He tweeted that pensioners 'mustn't be forced to bear the brunt of Tory economic failure'.
Labour's defence is that it hadn't planned to cut the winter fuel allowance – or indeed to raise taxes – until it opened the books and discovered a '£22billion black hole'. This is at best disingenuous. Labour was well aware of the state of the public finances before it took over, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out.
Moreover, nearly half of the so-called black hole is accounted for by Labour's agreeing outrageously large public-sector pay awards to curry favour with the trade unions. This week it made an unconditional offer of nearly 15 per cent to already well-paid train drivers, taking their average salary to nearly £70,000 a year.
Not that the Government's largesse has been rewarded. Hundreds of members of the train drivers' union, Aslef, are planning to walk out every Saturday between August 31 and November 9, and every Sunday from September 1 to November 10, a total of 22 days.
Labour's botched capitulation to Aslef came after junior doctors were offered a whopping 22 per cent increase over two years at the end of last month. Other public sector workers will get 5.5 per cent, two-and-a-half times the current rate of inflation.
The total cost of these generous awards will be £9.4 billion. That figure doesn't include GPs, who are next in line for a bumper payout.
Pensioners have meanwhile been deprived of their modest winter fuel allowance. Richer ones may not feel the loss but poorer ones certainly will. Labour sheds crocodile tears while shelling out huge amounts for public sector workers, which far surpass any commitments made in its manifesto or during the campaign.
And not only that. Despite the supposed black hole, Labour has been able to lay its hands on enormous sums for statist projects. It can find £11.6 billion for overseas climate aid and £8.3 billion for Great British Energy, a new investment body. All that can be said in mitigation is that these two splurges of public money are in the party's manifesto.
The alleged £22 billion black hole is part of Labour's biggest, and oft repeated, lie – namely, that the Tories 'crashed the economy'. Yet this week we have seen a spate of good economic news: unemployment down, inflation under control at 2.2 per cent, and growth in the second quarter (when the Tories were of course still in power) at a healthy 0.6 per cent.
Oh, Rishi Sunak, why did you call an election before these nuggets of good news could coalesce in the public mind? It must rank as one of the biggest political misjudgments of modern times. But that is another, tragic story.
Let's return to the list of Labour policies – deliberately kept out of the manifesto and not mentioned in the election campaign – that are now raining down on us like molten lava.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has announced an immediate ban on licensing North Sea oil and gas drilling. This goes much further than the manifesto's temperate undertaking to ensure 'a phased and responsible transition in the North Sea'.
Speaking of climate zealot Mr Miliband, he plans to blanket the country with wind turbines and solar farms, and councils will reportedly be forced to approve them under new rules whether they like it or not. Such compulsion hasn't been mentioned before."
Comments