‘Labour will destroy our economy and tax middle-England to death,’ says Sir John Redwood
‘Labour will destroy our economy and tax middle-England to death,’ says Sir John Redwood
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Labour's economic policy is remarkable for its similarities to the Government. At a time when people are crying out for change, Labour offers a doubling down on the Bank of England and OBR remote control approach which gave us high inflation and has now led to a predictable and needless technical recession.
No wonder so many people showing reluctance to commit to Conservatives do not want to vote Labour. The prize will go to the party that offers popular change.
People want an end to mass migration and the big flow of low-wage labour constantly arriving. The Conservative vision of a higher wage, higher employment economy is what is wanted.
Conservatives have to show by deeds they can make a very large reduction in legal migration and will stop the small boats. Labour has no workable plans to get migration back down from its recent highs. It is not even clear Labour wants to try.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves meet construction workers and apprentices during their visit to Panorama St Paul’s in the City of London which is to be the new headquarters of the HSBC offices
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People want no more inflationary shocks. It is obvious that the Bank of England along with the ECB and Fed made a big contribution to inflation by creating too much money and keeping interest rates too low for too long.
China, Japan and Switzerland did not print lots of extra cash and had low inflation despite the world energy price surge. They are all large energy importers.
Labour never once criticised the Bank over its loose money and has done no thinking about how it would respond to the Bank's latest errors selling too many bonds and keeping money too tight, damaging growth.
We had an opposition which criticised the inflationary outcome but made no intelligent criticism of the causes and offered no remedy. We need the Bank to rethink its models and forecasting, as they failed to see the inflation coming.MORE AGENDA-SETTING OPINION:
Sir John Redwood on GB NewsGBNLabour would like to offer more public spending as its cure for every ill. Instead, it has locked itself into OBR austerity and wishes to throw away the key, putting its whole tax and spend approach on autopilot to be determined by a set of wrong and usually gloomy OBR forecasts.
It would result in Labour finding evermore ways to tax people with any wealth or income above a low minimum. This would drive more rich and successful people out of the UK, cut entrepreneurial job creation and slow growth further. Under the Conservatives, unemployment has halved and job creation has been strong. Labour in office usually ends up running out of money with higher unemployment.
Labour would do everything but hold a referendum to re-enter the EU, aligning us more and more with it and offering more of our money to its pet schemes. They never answer the big question why is the European GDP per head only half that of the US? Why would linking us more firmly to their slow growth and austerity policies work when they fall further behind the US every year that passes?
Labour like the rest of us wants more and better quality public services. The Conservatives have done a great job on educational standards boosting literacy and numeracy.
Labour's attack on fee-paying schools might overburden our state schools as parents find they cannot afford the fees with VAT on top. Both main parties want more and better healthcare, and both have in Government made large increases in money committed to the NHS. The new discussions have to be about how best to spend it.
Labour is not taking the issue of public sector productivity seriously. The big decline over Covid has caused stresses within the budgets and has adversely affected the performance of the economy.
A policy of encouraging higher real wages is popular. It has to include good ways to boost output and help employees deliver greater success.