Last week’s Budget did not land. It staggered in after weeks of leaks, reversals, mixed messages, and panicked interventions from the Chancellor.
Despite a clear manifesto promise not to raise taxes on working people, Rachel Reeves has frozen income tax thresholds again, pulling almost a million more earners into the higher rate.
She is also taxing pension contributions over £2,000, punishing those who save and want to get on.
All this while Labour lets the welfare bill balloon out of control, pouring ever more money into a system crying out for serious reform.
The price tag: £30bn in new tax rises, £70bn in just two years.
What stands out most is the contradiction at the heart of it all.
We subsidise electric vehicles, then Labour introduces a pay-per-mile tax that will deter people from driving them.
It will hit older people, disabled people, and rural communities hardest. And once they are done with EVs, petrol cars will be next.
They claim to back renters, then raise taxes on landlords, which only guarantees higher rents and fewer homes.
They celebrate apprenticeships and childcare places while hiding a £7.5bn bill to students and a significant cut in per-pupil school funding.
After going through the leaked briefing in detail, I am afraid this government is trying to gaslight the country.
The Chancellor talks about growth. The OBR says the opposite: There is no boost to growth. The highest tax burden in our history. Rising debt through the decade. Those are the OBR’s own findings.
There is another way.
As the loyal opposition, Conservatives have put forward practical, fully costed plans to control spending and grow the economy through sensible tax cuts, including scrapping stamp duty, cutting business rates, and backing workers, savers, innovators, and risk-takers who drive the country forward.
I will keep making the case for a stronger, fairer, more prosperous economy in the year ahead.
In my final column of the year, as you calculate what the budget means for your family finances, I wish you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas and a peaceful New Year.
By Kit Malthouse MP
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