DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Real price of Labour’s narrative of doom
The words of opposition politicians are cheap. Their main objective is to persuade voters that the ruling party is taking the country to the dogs. No one takes much notice, knowing it’s just wind.
In government, however, language matters. When the Prime Minister and Chancellor imply the country is a basket case, it has global consequences.
For three months after Labour’s July 4 election victory, Rachel Reeves painted Britain as an economic wasteland.
Public services were in a state of collapse, she said, there was a vast black hole in the public finances, tough decisions lay ahead on tax – and life would soon get even worse.
It was, she claimed, the worst economic inheritance for any UK government since the War. Like so many of Labour’s pronouncements, this was untrue.
In 1979, Margaret Thatcher inherited a moribund economy and 13.4 per cent inflation. When David Cameron was elected in 2010, the financial system had crashed, and growth was minus 4.5 per cent.
For three months after Labour’s July 4 election victory, Rachel Reeves painted Britain as an economic wasteland
It was, she claimed, the worst economic inheritance for any UK government since the War. Like so many of Labour’s pronouncements, this was untrue
But the relentless narrative of Britain as a ‘broken’ nation stuck. Yesterday we saw the effect. Between July and September growth slowed to just 0.1 per cent.
This means we have gone from being the fastest-growing G7 economy to the second slowest – and that’s before the effects of the Chancellor’s enterprise-crushing Budget.
Business leaders have been lining up to attack her short-sighted tax policies, especially the National Insurance hike, which they say will raise unemployment and depress wages.
The Institute of Directors says the Budget measures will ‘certainly damage investment, employment and growth’; a Deutsche Bank analysis says they could cost 100,000 jobs.
Meanwhile, five of the country’s biggest lenders have raised the cost of fixed-rate mortgages in anticipation of a downturn.
On taking office, Ms Reeves said growth was ‘the central mission’ of her government. If so, they have made a poor start. After her initial doom-mongering and ham-fisted Budget, the Chancellor is in serious danger of driving Britain into recession.
Rushing to judgment
Sir James Munby, former president of the High Court’s Family Division, said the proposal to give a judge the final say on whether an assisted suicide should go ahead was ‘defective’
Concerns that the assisted dying Bill is being rushed through the Commons without sufficient attention to detail have been underlined by the intervention of one of Britain’s most eminent judges.
Sir James Munby, former president of the High Court’s Family Division, said the proposal to give a judge the final say on whether an assisted suicide should go ahead was ‘defective’.
The lack of transparency and absence of a right of appeal made the plans ‘profoundly unsatisfactory’ for judicial involvement.
It was ‘extraordinary’ that the judge would not even be required to question the patient, he said.
There were already ethical questions surrounding the Bill, but this suggests the legal implications have not been adequately thought through.
Neither was it helpful for the architect of the Bill, Kim Leadbeater, to criticise Health Secretary Wes Streeting for publicly opposing it. If he has fears about its implications, he has every right to express them.
As we have seen in other countries, the legal right to die for the terminally ill can soon be expanded to include other groups, such as those suffering depression, the disabled, and the frail elderly.
If ever a piece of new legislation required exhaustive debate and painstaking scrutiny, it is one which effectively allows the state to sanction the end of a life.
