Published by The i Paper (17th November, 2025)
Like millions of fellow citizens, I voted Labour at the last election fuelled by despair at the dismal failures and constant in-fighting of the post-Brexit Conservatives. This was more in hope than any heartfelt expectation that a change of government might solve our country’s glaring problems or sort out our crumbling public services. But at very least, it felt fair to assume the party might at least try to deliver on endlessly repeated mantras about stability and growth having seen the destructive chaos of its predecessors, especially when we saw the massive size of its majority.
Tragically, we have been betrayed by Westminster again – as shown in excruciating style last week. First came Downing Street’s botched hit job on Health Secretary Wes Streeting, intended to shore up Sir Keir Starmer’s increasingly shaky position but instead leaving him in even more jeopardy. Then came Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s timorous U-turn over her heavily trailed plan to raise income tax, which rattled markets and exposed the most bungled Budget build-up in recent decades.
Before Labour won power, Reeves lectured us about the need for stability, saying business leaders kept telling her turmoil at Westminster deterred investors. She was right. Yet, in recent weeks she has spread uncertainty over both pensions and property, paralysing both sectors and freaking out millions of people over their finances as her flailing team floats ideas to extract their cash. She has trailed wealth taxes and “exit” taxes on rich folks fleeing abroad, although such ideas have proved disastrous elsewhere in Europe. Finally, the Government settled on raising income tax, offset by cutting national insurance, to collect £6bn from pensioners, landlords and savers while protecting workers. Politically painful, but it was widely seen as the most progressive and sensible way to raise some chunky sums.
The Chancellor had even given an interview to start selling this concept and make her case, blaming everyone but herself while claiming she would always do what was right for the country. And then she ditched the plan days later. Forget the spin about improved fiscal forecasts: this was a tribal move to placate party critics. Yes, it would have smashed a manifesto pledge. But Reeves has left a trail of broken promises behind her. Before the election, for instance, she told voters the manifesto was “fully funded and fully costed – no ifs, no ands, no buts… no additional tax rises” when almost every analyst warned about the need to cut costs or raise cash. Then after last year’s £40bn tax hike – heavily loaded onto business, stifling growth and jobs – she promised not to come back for another cash grab.
So now – with the latest economic data showing flatlining growth and following costly policy U-turns – she will deliver a hastily arranged “smorgasbord” of measures. No doubt there will be more hollow promises, more waffle about governing in the national interest. Most likely there will be fresh targeting of the rich, perpetuating the toxic myth that they can fund public services as the tax burden is shifted still further onto their backs to appease the left. Probably there will be hammering of London homeowners too, regardless of the destructive impact on a housing market distorted by the dearth of new homes in a capital that – like it or not – is the engine of our country’s prosperity. And more use of fiscal drag to ensnare millions more middle-class people in higher income tax brackets, a sly stealth tactic that Reeves used to condemn.
As Reeves plots these moves in her comfortable grace-and-favour residence, she serves as a symbol of the pitiful calibre and corrosive hypocrisy of our politicians. Before the election, she told interviewers she had always wanted to be chancellor. “I know how to run a successful economy,” she boasted, pointing to her experience as a Bank of England economist. But she looks painfully out of her depth; it is hard to believe she would be hired to run the finances even of a small firm, let alone trusted to grapple with the complexities of a national economy in such a challenging world.
She has faced a string of controversies that foster concern over Westminster: over falsehoods in her curriculum vitae; expenses at a bank; accusations of plagiarism in a book she wrote; and most recently for failing to apply for a council licence before letting out her London home. She is not even an effective communicator with her infamously “boring, snoring” style of presentation.
It is depressing to see such weak governance, with Westminster trapped in a doom loop when our economy is in the doldrums and democracy under assault. Yet the solution is not just sticking-plaster policies, funded by endless extraction of money from businesses and voters. There is urgent need for fundamental reforms to tackle bureaucracy, waste and constant frittering away of taxpayers’ cash without proper accountability. Instead, there is a repeated failure to take tough decisions.
So the health service faces a £60bn liability for negligence. A similar sum goes on gold-plated public sector pensions. Another £10bn on needless prison building. Billions blown on bungled procurement and outsourcing as private firms run rings around the state. Blatant corruption on contracts cost billions more during the pandemic. The bills for special educational needs and welfare soar, yet all too often those citizens most in need are left struggling to obtain crucial support. The grim list is endless.
This chaotic Budget threatens to make or break the Labour Government. It will lead to more froth about the leadership and frenzied debate over whether Starmer will be replaced by Streeting or one of the other rivals lusting after his job. And now they are turning on refugees in a bid to save their own skins. The irony is that their hope of clinging to power is based on fear of the populists who haunt them on both flanks – yet just like their Tory predecessors, they are stoking the fires of electoral fury with their own inadequate leadership, tribal games and grim collective failures.