Malcolm Hill

There’s a lot of self-serving spin emanating from the UK government about how virtuous it is re fiscal consolidation. Here are the facts. Labour inherited an OBR budget deficit forecast of £87bn (3.1% GDP) for FY2024/25. After R Reeves’ 1st disastrous budget the actual deficit was £153bn (5.2%). Massive jump. Labour inherited OBR budget deficit of £77bn (2.7%) for FY2025/26. After RR’s disastrous 2nd budget that turned out to be £133bn (4.3%). So in its first two years it added over £120bn to borrowing/deficit (despite huge increase in taxes). The OBR forecast it inherited for this FY2026/27 was £69bn (2.3%). It is now forecast to be £116bn (3.3%). That looks like an underestimate. More likely to be closer to £130bn again. Inherited budget forecast for 2027/28: £51bn (1.6%). Latest forecast: £97bn (2.9%). Inherited budget forecast for 2028/29: £39bn (1.2%). Latest forecast: £86bn (2.5%). Far from fiscal consolidation Labour is forecast to borrow an incredible £260bn more over the 5 years from 2024/25 than the forecasts it inherited. Despite the tax rises. Which will continue. Alone among G7 countries the IMF projects the UK tax burden to rise by 3.7% of GDP 2025-31. The only other country with a rising tax burden is France (0.8%). Italy is static. Rest of G7 have falling tax burden. And let’s not forget Labour’s so-called ‘fiscal consolidation’ is all backloaded to end-decade. Unlikely to happen. So taxes will have to rise by even more.

Lies lies and more lies Labours energy bills are going UP by £60 a year due to Labour green taxes Burnham could end net zero tomorrow and reduce your bill - but he won’t @DPJHodges

Every day for 2 weeks I am going to publish Kemi’s Conservative manifesto/commitments that have been formally announced. There are 15 main areas, with over 40 details. I’ll start with this one; 1. Economy and taxation Her central economic position is “live within our means, cut spending and then cut taxes.” £47 billion of identified savings from public spending. Her “Golden Economic Rule” at least half of savings would go towards reducing the deficit, the remainder to fund tax cuts and growth measures. Abolish Stamp Duty on primary residences. Scrap business rates for thousands of high-street businesses. £5,000 First Job Bonus for young people entering work for the first time, paid into a savings account. Repeal Labour’s Family Farm Tax. Repeal the Family Business Tax. Repeal the Education Tax. Repeal the Energy Profits Levy. Reduce regulation and promote private-sector investment and business growth. #conservatives #manifesto

All these young kids being sold a lie. Dumbed down qualifications. Not one of these 'top students' would pass the 11 plus. @GBNEWS

People sometimes ask me why I detest Labour? Much of that goes back to their destruction of Private Sector Final Salary Pension schemes in 1997. In 2008, 10 years after Gordon Brown carried out his disastrous ACT Pensions grand larceny by removing tax relief paid to pension funds. This was found by the Taxpayers Alliance to had cost an average of £17K on every person's pension pot. In just 10 years, this had cost Private Sector Final Salary schemes £175 BILLION. Hence their closures ever since. Had this grotesque theft of peoples' pensions not taken place, then the pension system in the UK would be much healthier, without people having to work into their late 60s.🤨 As a final insult, this tax does not raise any money these days anyway because many UK pension funds stopped investing in UK companies, so as to avoid this tax. All the while Public Sector worked continue to enjoy Final Salary Pensions, paid for by Private Sector workers on smaller DC pensions. Absolutely obscene.

What are these people doing in our country?

“Labour backbenchers restart welfare whinging” “It’s day eight of Andy Burnham’s premiership and, bless him, he’s already facing a left-wing revolt. Labour backbenchers are up in arms after their dear leader dared to mention tackling welfare. The new Prime Minister insisted this week that he wants to ‘get really serious’ about slashing the benefits bill. He has, of course, offered no detail on how he intends to do so. But even the merest suggestion of an effort has been enough to send Labour’s lefties into meltdown. Liverpool Riverside MP Kim Johnson whinged that the appointment of John Healey as Chancellor ‘signals a return to warfare not welfare’. She added: ‘If the new leadership believes it can revive the failed politics of welfare cuts instead of asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share, it will be repeating not only Keir Starmer’s mistakes but fourteen years of Tory austerity. If the first instinct of a new leadership is to target disabled people and low-income families rather than challenge the wealth and inequality at the top of society, then nothing has been learned.’ Joining the chorus of condemnation, John McDonnell declared that welfare ‘must be based upon a strategy of providing positive support to people rather than punitive sanction’. This steady drumbeat of social media complaints is precisely how the rebellion against Sir Keir Starmer began. If Burnham thinks he can simply flutter his eyelashes and make it all go away, good luck to him. His premiership’s honeymoon benefits may be withdrawn rather sooner than expected” Steerpike

🚨 NEW: The total number of millionaires in the UK has fallen to the lowest level since the 2008 financial crisis There were 442,000 millionaires in 2025, down from over 1m in 2021