The global economic outlook is uncertain. The war in Ukraine still drags on, Trump is still threatening tariffs on a host of countries. He is currently engaged in a full-on trade war with China. Nobody knows, frankly, where this all ends.
Our Labour government will probably blame the global outlook if, as is likely, the growth projections are revised downwards, yet again. The IMF now predicts growth in the UK this year to be 0.5 per cent. Last October, our own OBR said UK growth for 2025 would be two per cent.
The government will do what governments always do. They will blame everybody and anybody if growth fails to appear. But, of course, everyone will know that the government itself is largely to blame.
Labour, for purely ideological reasons, increased taxes on businesses, farmers, and everybody who employs people. They also increased taxes on wealthy foreigners. What happened was entirely predictable.
We read that a millionaire leaves Britain every 45 minutes. I often hear people say, “Good riddance. Who needs rich people, anyway?" This is short-sighted and foolish. Rich people account for a high proportion of the tax take of any government in the Western world.
Indeed, the top one per cent of income taxpayers contribute 29 per cent of all income tax. It is striking that this proportion has actually steadily increased significantly since 2000. The figure was 25 per cent in 2010. That proportion was also an increase from 21 per cent in 2000.
We have, in reality, become more reliant on wealthy individuals for their contributions to the national kitty. At the same time, spending has increased dramatically. Whether we like them or not, we need rich people to pay taxes here so we can fund our public services.
It's all very well calling for Rachel Reeves' head but she isn't ultimately the problem - Kwasi KwartengGetty Images
The government has turned its face against stark reality. However, they dress it up, this is pure socialist doctrine. In the socialist mind, rich and successful people are the enemy. We know from experience in the last century how misguided this belief is, yet it persists to this day.
If socialism worked, Cuba and Zimbabwe would have been among the most prosperous nations in the world. They are, of course, poor countries whose fate has been dictated by repression and wrong-headed policy.
Here, in Britain, Labour hiked up taxes to the tune of £40bn just four months after they got into power. Most of these taxes fell on business owners. £25bn will be paid by employers in increases in national insurance on employees.
Labour also put an inheritance tax on farmers who had previously been largely exempt, as well as small business owners. In the interests of ecological purity, the energy profits levy, or windfall tax, has been increased from 75 per cent to 78 per cent.
This was one of the more lunatic policies of the Conservative government, in which I was a senior cabinet member. I do not deny that. Taxing energy producers to the point where we are more reliant on producers of energy from abroad is madness.
Labour has already provided inflation-busting wage deals for their union pay masters within a month of coming into government. It looks like more of the same will be provided this year.
In only nine months, Labour has committed the country to a degree of spending which is simply unsustainable without impressive economic growth.
The signs are that the long-wished-for growth isn’t going to happen. More tax rises, more sweetheart deals for the unions, more hard labour.
No doubt the cry will be for Reeves’s head. This is all very well, but she isn’t, ultimately, the problem. It’s her party, and it's ideology that will be at fault.
She will just be the latest in a long line of Labour Chancellors who have found that socialism fails when you run out of other people’s money.
