No wonder Sir Keir Starmer is going abroad “for a few days” over New Year. The economic news here in the UK is unrelentingly gloomy.
The prime minister’s spokesman says the latest GDP figures show “the challenge of fixing the economy and public figures is huge and won’t happen overnight”.
Too right. The figures suggest the economy is flatlining and there was no economic growth in July, August and September this year: in other words, since the 4 July election.
But is it the Tories’ fault, as Number 10 claims: the “£22bn black hole” and all that? Or is Rachel Reeves’ budget that’s to blame, as the Tories insist?
Well, the poor growth figures surely can’t be blamed on the budget, because that wasn’t until 30 October, though gloomy predictions may have contributed.
And the “black hole”? Labour ministers constantly blame that for everything from unpopular tax rises to overcrowded prisons, a “broken” NHS and polluted rivers.
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Why has growth ground to a halt?
But it’s not just the disappointing GDP figures that will have Sir Keir heading for the sun lounger. (And, to be fair, the summer riots did wreck his August holiday plans.)
The CBI, which represents scores of UK firms, claims the economy is heading for “the worst of all worlds” and Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey last week expressed alarm over the budget tax hikes.
Cue Tory outrage: shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith slammed “a recession made in Downing Street” and shadow chancellor Mel Stride claimed: “The warning lights are flashing.”
Richard Holden, the shadow paymaster general, even called the chancellor a “modern-day Grinch”, the mean-spirited character who stole a whole town’s Christmas gifts.
The reason: the Tories claim charities will hand over a total of £6.3bn in national insurance payments to HMRC next year, 45% of the near-£14bn donated by the public.
More ominously, Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned after the GDP figures that the chancellor may need to “come back for yet more money” next autumn.
Read more:
Biggest tax rise since 1993 in budget
Prisoners sent to less secure cells after overcrowding
NHS league tables to be introduced in bid to improve NHS
Four water firms blamed for 90% of pollution incidents
Hold on, though. The chancellor did tell the CBI last month she wouldn’t need to raise taxes again.
Well, yes, but Sir Keir wouldn’t repeat her pledge at Prime Minister’s Questions.
When he appeared before the Liaison Committee of senior MPs last Thursday, the prime minister said: “One of the biggest mistakes, I think, of the last 14 years was the idea that everything could be fixed by Christmas.”
OK. We get the message. Fixing the economy and restoring growth will take time. Even Kemi Badenoch agrees, it seems.
She’s told an interviewer she won’t “rush out” policies and there’s no “quick fix” for the Tories.
“I don’t have as much time as I would like,” she says. Really?
“Four years even, in my view, is not enough time to do what we want to do,” she says, “which is a revolution in terms of how the state works and how our society functions.”
So as we approach the turn of the year, both main parties are asking voters to be patient in 2025. Good luck, as they say, with that.
Bad economic news, bad poll ratings… It was reported at the weekend that Sir Keir “badly needs a holiday” owing to the “relentless strain” of the job, according to friends.
Don’t forget the sun cream, prime minister!