The Budget proves Labour’s manifesto was undoubtedly dishonest - Andrew Vine
In last year’s Labour manifesto, I don’t recall a line that read: ‘If you work hard, try to save and plan for your retirement, we’re going to make you poorer.’ Nor do I recall a line that read: ‘If you’re workshy, relax and enjoy yourself because there are unlimited funds to pay you to do nothing.’
Funny, that. I must have missed both when considering Labour’s pitch for office while deciding how to cast my vote, which is strange given how eye-catching these two central premises of the party’s attitude to government are.
That they are key policies of the government – to wallop workers with tax rises while rewarding the idle – is undeniable after last week’s budget, which prioritised skivers over strivers.
As the country sinks under the weight of a benefits regime which will soon consume a quarter of all the money the government has, and adds 5,000 people a day to the tally of those claiming to be unable to work, it’s the poor old workers who get up in the morning and go out to earn an honest living that are left feeling like mugs who have been conned by a party which said it would help them.
Their thanks for trusting Labour are higher income tax bills, having more of whatever they can save snatched away and finding their planning for a reasonably comfortable retirement made harder and more expensive.
Nobody in their right mind would have voted for this, especially not the hard-working people of Labour’s traditional red wall seats in Yorkshire and the rest of the north.
Nor would they have voted to make life more difficult and expensive for the companies that pay their wages, or higher energy bills, or putting farmers out of business or concreting over the countryside, all of which have already happened or are about to, thanks to this government.
Which is why, in its anodyne, vague and frankly dishonest manifesto, Labour was at pains to give no clue of what it had in store for the working people it constantly bangs on about.
And its manifesto was undoubtedly dishonest. One of the few specifics in it was not to raise income tax or national insurance, and yet it has done both, stifling economic growth by saddling companies with additional costs and dragging more people into either paying the basic or higher rates of tax, even those with nothing more than the state pension to live on.
For the Chancellor and Prime Minister to insist they have kept to a manifesto commitment by not raising taxes directly is a disingenuous stance that takes the public for fools, when they are anything but.
Appeasing Labour’s own backbench MPs by granting their wish that the ever-growing benefits bill will not be curbed was one of the key priorities of the budget.
Sir Keir Starmer ran scared of his own party and abandoned plans for a modest scaling-down of spending on benefits earlier this year, despite every reputable economic analysis of Britain’s finances concluding it is unaffordable and must be brought under control if the books are ever to be balanced.
No attempt to do that is being made, and it is those who work for a living who are effectively told they must foot the bill, even if it leaves them worse off.
This government displays a very special talent for alienating people. In its relatively brief time in office, it has made enemies of industry, commerce, the financial markets, farmers and rural communities.
Given its record in offending all these groups, it is hardly surprising opinion polls rate it one of the least popular governments in modern times.
Now it has offended the very working people that have traditionally been its core supporters, and who unquestionably gave it a resounding election victory, those who make the economy tick day in and day out, not earning a fortune but often getting by on wages that are far from generous.
Traditionally hard-working Yorkshire communities will take a very dim view of being made poorer in order to fund those who exploit a ramshackle and insufficiently rigorous benefits system to swerve work and enjoy an annual income that can exceed that of low-paid jobs.
The government underestimates at its peril the degree of resentment its actions will provoke in such communities, where there is frustration that people are getting away with being paid to do nothing by claiming to be in some way ill, when everybody knows they are gaming the system.
Labour came to power promising fairness, change for the better and to be champions of working people.
Yet there is nothing fair in making life worse and more financially worrying for people who work for a living in order to fund those who will not. It may turn out this was the budget that loses Labour its red wall.