The economy, in case you haven’t noticed, is in the toilet. Growth has collapsed. Productivity is poor. Living standards have suffered, with one of the sharpest declines on record.
Confidence has slumped, and prosperity feels like a distant dream. I don't know about you, but when I walk around the streets of Britain these days, I feel a mix of depression and embarrassment.
The streets are dirty, public transport rarely works, and when it does arrive, it's worn down. Petty crime has essentially been legalized, leaving a mood of fear and anxiety hanging in the air.
Public services are a joke. London is dead, people are visibly struggling, and nothing seems to work. The only thing I do feel certain about is that while the present is already worse than the past, the future looks set to be even worse.
Matthew Goodwin said that Britain needs electroshock therapy
GB NEWS
Today, Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves issued her emergency budget, a panic move because she was on the brink of breaking her own fiscal rules.
And while she’s facing criticism for cutting public services and losing control of the public finances, there’s a much bigger picture being missed here.
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We have 170,000 more civil servants on the payroll than we did in 2016, all of whom, by the way, are being paid for by you, the British taxpayer. Our welfare spending has been rising, and is now projected to surpass £360billion a year by 2028-29.
Our debt servicing costs are over £100billion, which is the cost of servicing our national credit card. It’s our fourth-highest cost. Bear in mind that we are borrowing more than £100billion every year, leaving our economy in a deeply vulnerable, fragile place.
Our productivity is essentially non-existent, and on top of all that, we’re now flooding the economy with masses of low-skill, low-wage migration from outside of Europe.
Migrants who are taking more out of the economy than they’re putting in, as even the Office for Budget Responsibility now accepts.
The verdict, I think, is clear: we are facing a severe economic crisis. New YouGov polling shows that just 16 per cent of the British public think the government is handling the economy well, and only 11 per cent think Rachel Reeves is doing a good job.
I know I'm wondering about the 11 per cent as well. Pollsters find that only 14 per cent of people out there in the country feel better off. Under the Labour Government, only 14 per cent—a shocking number. And do you know what?
With today’s news that the OBR, a deeply flawed institution itself, has halved growth forecasts for the year from two per cent to one per cent, it proves that the British people are right to feel this way. But let’s be honest, this isn’t just about dissatisfaction with the Labour Government. This is about dissatisfaction with the entire political class.
Hardly anybody out there thinks that Labour has the answers, and they certainly don’t think that the Tories have the answers either. When I look out there at the country, I see a collapse of public trust and faith in the entire establishment, which looks completely out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people—an establishment that, whether on the left or the right, whether Labour or the Tories, is wedded to this big tax, big spending, big welfare, big state, big net zero, big immigration economy that’s making us poorer and pushing us into managed decline.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced her Spring statement in the House of Commons todayPA And this isn’t just about the economy either. When people are asked who will lower immigration, who will stop the small boats, who will reduce crime, the most popular answer today is not Labour.
It’s not the Conservatives. It’s none of them. There is a widespread feeling among the British people that they are now trapped in a flimsy, disintegrating boat on stormy seas, with no captain and surrounded by enormous, terrifying waves.
It’s a sense that nobody in power really knows what they’re doing anymore, that nobody’s even bothering to listen to the forgotten majority.
The country, I think, needs a radical overhaul of public spending, government efficiency, tax cuts, and deregulation. We need to get back to what really matters when it comes to driving prosperity.
But none of the Westminster class is willing to give Britain the economic electric shock therapy that we desperately need.
