Gloom & bust
AS LABOUR prepares for its first Budget, the scale of the challenge is becoming all too clear.
Figures released yesterday show our debt mountain stands at 100 per cent of GDP for the first time in more than 50 years.
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In other words, the Government now owes the equivalent of every penny created annually by its citizens.
That is a monstrous burden for our wheezing economy to bear.
Covid and war in Ukraine have left us with unimaginable bills that must be paid down.
Recent massive pay rises for junior doctors and rapacious train drivers, among others, will only add to that debt.
Meanwhile, consumer confidence is falling and spending is down.
Labour’s strategy in recent months has been to tell people how awful things are to soften them up for tax rises and spending cuts.
But some fear it has led to families already tightening their belts in preparation for the storm they are repeatedly told is coming.
Such a downbeat message — gloom or bust — is inevitably bad for growth, which remains fragile.
So beyond unveiling tax rises, Labour need to spell out exactly what the plan is.
Will they tackle spending on benefits, which is now out of control with millions paid to sit at home?
Will proper reform of the NHS really happen, without costing us the earth?
How will Ed Miliband’s reckless rush to Net Zero be paid for?
Most of all, Keir Starmer and his Chancellor need to make people feel there are better days ahead.
Over to you, PM — starting with next week’s party conference speech.
Gangster’s law
ONCE again an immigrant commits a sickening crime but cannot be booted out of Britain.
A Ugandan killer — part of a gang involved in a turf war who beat their target to death in the back of an ambulance — should have been deported after serving a jail sentence for murder.
But he says he cannot be sent home as he faces torture.
To no one’s surprise he also claims to have a severe mental illness.
Better, his lawyers insist, for him to be kept safe in Britain — and no doubt be treated by our overstretched NHS.
A judge has now ruled that the killer — who has been granted anonymity — should be allowed to appeal against deportation.
The Home Office has once again been defeated by laws under the European Court of Human Rights.
There is a way out of this — to demand reform of the ECHR or quit for good.
Tory leadership candidates are currently having this exact debate.
From Labour we have heard nothing.