Labour can't be trusted - there's only one party Britain should opt for and it's NOT the Tories - Ann Widdecombe
Ann Widdecombe gives her opinion on the state of the nation and the parties Britons face at the ballot box
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For a party which has such a commanding poll lead, Labour appears remarkably lacklustre as does its leader who is to charisma what Trump is to understatement.
Policies are discarded like confetti, lacunae yawn where urgent action is imperative (e.g. immigration) and most “pledges” are too vague by which to measure success or failure in the future
It is a political truism that oppositions do not win elections but governments lose them and that is now playing out on a grand scale.
The Conservatives could not have made a bigger hash of their term in office if they had set out to do so.
Even more than failure on some of the big pledges, the relentless infighting and leadership changes have alienated the public who rightly regard the Tories in Parliament as an undisciplined rabble. They are.
Nevertheless, does despair of the government mean that one can automatically place trust in the opposition? The short answer is no – it is still incumbent on the opposition to prove itself worthy of the electorate’s trust. All leaders change policies sometimes but Starmer must have set a record for the number of u-turns.
Removing charitable status for private schools, abolishing the two child limit in the benefit system, abolishing tuition fees, a special tax for the highest earners and of course the infamous promise of £28bn for green investment have all been scrapped.
Indeed not only scrapped but in some cases reversed such as Starmer’s intention now to raise tuition fees and Rachel Reeves’ firm promise not to raise tax or National Insurance. Can the nation trust a party whose promises are abandoned at such speed?
The government has made a prize hash of controlling immigration: both the legal and the illegal variety. The Rwanda plan has still not been translated into action but there was never any plan B. The boats have kept on coming.
As for legal immigration, Sunak claims it has dropped from the previous year but that argument has more holes than a sieve.
In the course of the previous year the numbers for 2022 rose from an initial assessment of 606k to 764k as the final figure so to compare the initial assessment for 2023 with the final figure for 2022 is a sleight of hand so blatant that it is breath taking in its audacity.
The numbers entering the country lawfully amount to some 1.2m, in short enough to fill a city the size of Bristol twice over.
So the government cannot be trusted to reduce immigration despite the strain on the health service, education, the infrastructure and especially housing.
Sunak would need to build a new home every two minutes to meet the demand. But can we trust Labour?
The brutal truth is that Sunak offers nothing at all by way of immigration policy other than a vague wish to increase international co-operation to get the people smugglers - as if that were not already happening. So, nothing new.
Labour says it will not increase taxes or National Insurance. Remember when Tony Blair, also eager to promise no return to high tax, high spend told us that he would stick with Tory spending plans?
So where did he get the money? Selling off gold at bargain basement prices and wrecking the occupational pension system.
The economy has never been safe with Labour.
“There is no money left” said a note from the outgoing treasury minister to his Tory successor in 2010.There never is with Labour governments.
Can we trust the Tories? No. Can we trust Labour? No. It is time for the change which is offered by Reform UK.
