DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Bluster cannot conceal this damaged pledge
In Labour’s election manifesto, the wording was unambiguous: ‘We will not raise rates of National Insurance.’
How naïve to have thought they meant it.
Strong signals from the Government yesterday suggest Rachel Reeves is about to ride roughshod over that pledge by raising NI contributions for employers.
As the Institute for Fiscal Studies puts it, this would be ‘a straightforward breach’ of a benchmark election promise.
Ah but, Labour now says, when we said we wouldn’t increase NI rates we didn’t mean for employers, only ‘working people’. Complete bluster, of course.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves participates in a panel talk at the International Investment Summit at the Guildhall in London, Britain, 14 October 2024
Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during the International Investment Summit at the Guildhall in London
Most business owners are very much working people. Butchers, cobblers, bakers (even toolmakers) graft hard for a living and, if successful, create employment.
This is a tax on their enterprise. At the International Investment Summit in London yesterday, Sir Keir Starmer was trying to convince the corporate world that Labour is the party of stability and can be trusted to keep to its word.
Yet this measure is just one of a string of nasty surprises not in the manifesto – not least the scrapping of winter fuel allowance for millions of pensioners.
The forthcoming budget is expected to include hikes in capital gains tax, watering down of pension relief and manipulation of the fiscal rules to allow a potentially ruinous borrowing binge.
None of this was mentioned before the election, so why should the captains of industry assembled in London this week believe any of Labour’s other assurances?
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves makes her keynote speech during the International Investment Summit
Who says they won’t increase corporation tax in a year or two if the mood takes them?
Saying you can be trusted is one thing; proving it is quite another. Trust takes time to build. Sir Keir has not made a good start.
Academic high life
While students groan under the weight of their massive debts, university vice-chancellors are living the high life.
On top of average pay of £300,000, free accommodation and lavish pension rights, they claimed at least £1million in expenses over the past two years.
The real total will be far higher, as almost a third of universities failed to comply with Freedom of Information requests.
Claims ranged from luxury travel and five-star hotels to smaller amounts for such things as a ‘herb chopper’, a cheese knife and canned drinks.
The principal of Herriot-Watt University, in Edinburgh claimed £640 for maintaining ‘the chauffeur’s cottage’.
While students groan under the weight of their massive debts, university vice-chancellors are living the high life
After everything undergraduates have suffered since Covid – and as they’ll probably soon see big rises in already onerous tuition fees – vice-chancellors should show some restraint.
Instead, it appears to be a case of spend, spend, spend.
Students may be forgiven for thinking they are being used as cash cows to fund the pampered lifestyle of an academic overclass.
Army under siege
With the world in turmoil, the news that the British Army is to fall below 70,000 for the first time in 200 years is deeply troubling.
True, technology is at the heart of modern soldiering but there are many situations where there is no substitute for boots on the ground.
If we are to retain any diplomatic and military influence in the world – and be able to defend ourselves against the enemies of democracy – this gradual withering of our armed service must end.
As the Roman adage has it, if you desire peace prepare for war.
