In legal terminology, a false prospectus is a document containing untrue or misleading information intended to gull people into investing in a dubious venture.
As well as actual falsehoods, it includes statements which deliberately create a false impression and/or dishonestly hide material facts.
To distribute one is an extremely serious offence in both civil and criminal codes and can lead to the perpetrator being heavily fined or even imprisoned.
At the end of Sir Keir Starmer’s first full calendar year in office, it becomes ever clearer that the Labour manifesto was just such a document.
Despite his pious pledge that he would bring integrity back to politics, his administration has been marked by dishonesty. He presented himself as a man of substance who would put the national interest first and ‘govern for every single person in this country’.
Instead, he and his gimcrack Cabinet have broken key promises that were in the manifesto and introduced a raft of divisive, unpopular policies that were not.
As prospectuses go, it could hardly have been more false. In any other walk of life, the fraud squad would now be banging down doors.
Its most egregious falsehood was that Labour wouldn’t raise taxes on working people. The manifesto set out increases of £8.5billion by 2028/29, to be funded by raids on non-doms, private schools and oil and gas firms.
Despite Keir Starmer’s pious pledge, his administration has been marked by dishonesty. And under his Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, the tax take has soared by £66billion in just two budgets
The postponement of elections, David Lammy’s planned assault on jury trial, stuffing the Lords with yet more patsy peers, the introduction of digital identity cards
Under his hapless Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, a woman clearly drowning in the enormity of her role, the tax take has rocketed by a staggering £66billion in just two budgets.
She insists on blaming the Tories for leaving a ‘secret’ £22billion black hole in the public finances but no one believes her. Even if it were true, what about the other £44billion? Where was that in the manifesto?
These are Labour choices which have crushed the very growth and enterprise the party’s manifesto promised to turbocharge.
The burden has fallen on all sections of society – employers, workers, farmers, pensioners, property owners, electric car drivers, those who enjoy a flutter – and that’s before upcoming sharp increases in council tax.
There have been spectacular U-turns, of course, notably over cutting winter fuel allowance and disability benefits and the inheritance tax threshold on family farms.
Sir Keir claims they showed he had been listening to the dissenters. Another interpretation is that he and Ms Reeves don’t really know what they’re doing.
Lacking any political finesse, they lurch from one avoidable crisis to the next. Their backbenchers are in revolt, refusing to support any attempt to deflate the ballooning welfare bill and effectively holding their leader hostage.
The main consequence has been the largest transfer of wealth from the industrious to the indolent in living memory, with taxes climbing ever higher to subsidise the growing legion of long-term sick and workless.
More than nine million people of working age are economically inactive, with 2.8million of those on ill-health or disability benefits. Many of the latter are under-25s citing mental health conditions.
But what could be more damaging to mental health than the prospect of a life without the dignity of work? The total welfare bill continues to soar and is expected to rise by £60.4billion in the life of this Government to an astonishing £373.4billion.
It is simply unsustainable, yet Sir Keir lacks the courage to take on his backbench MPs and attempt to rectify the situation.
Instead, he indulges their fantasy that we can fund unlimited spending by taxing and borrowing. They may be too blinkered or simple-minded to see it, but that is the road to national bankruptcy and genuine austerity of the type seen after the collapse of the Callaghan government in the late 1970s.
Next on the charge sheet are the changes that should have been in the manifesto but weren’t. Who voted for the mass release of criminals, the surrender of the Chagos Islands at huge cost, the fresh hounding of Ulster veterans, assisted dying, carpeting thousands of acres of rural land with vast solar farms, the creep back into the ambit of the EU?
More sinister still is the chipping away at traditional British life, rights and the constitution. The postponement of elections (in which Labour is expected to be routed), David Lammy’s planned assault on jury trial, stuffing the Lords with yet more patsy peers, the introduction of digital identity cards.
Anyone who demurs or is outside the socialist tent is seen as the enemy – parents who send their children to private schools, country folk who enjoy trail hunting with hounds, those who believe sex is a matter of biology rather than lifestyle choice, anyone with a home considered more valuable than they deserve.
Sir Keir’s disgraced former deputy Angela Rayner famously referred to Conservatives as ‘scum’. She is clearly far from alone in that view within her tribe. Labour truly is the nasty party, driven principally by spite and envy.
It is the party of the unions, the public sector and the benefit class, showering cash on its client base at the expense of those who graft in private industry and strive to give their families the best life they can.
Labour has surrendered millions of heartland voters to Nigel Farage
Meanwhile, there is deep concern over how British life is being changed without consent. Labour promised to stop the Channel boats and ‘smash the gangs’, yet illegal migration and its effects have become worse; so much so that many question whether Sir Keir is serious about tackling the problem.
More than 40,000 migrants, predominantly young men, have arrived in 2025 to be dumped in hotels and local communities ill-equipped to cope.
Many do not share our values of tolerance and sex equality, as the alarming number of sexual attacks on women shows.
Radical Islam is also on the rise and with it a sickening increase in anti-Semitism. The Manchester synagogue outrage was the worst of hundreds of attacks on Jewish people and property, fuelled by events in Gaza.
Every week, pro-Palestinian demonstrations call for globalisation of the intifada, a clear exhortation to violence against Jews. The police have been slow to crack down on this incitement to hatred and, by recognising a hypothetical Palestinian state, the Government has fuelled it.
Perhaps the biggest political question for 2026 is whether Sir Keir will still be PM at the end of it. His popularity is at a subterranean low, lower even than Liz Truss at her nadir. The buzzards are circling and Labour’s biggest financial backer, Unite, says his going is ‘inevitable’. A thumping defeat in
May’s local elections could trigger a leadership challenge.
Hollow and ineffectual as he is, however, the main pretenders to his crown may well be even worse. Favourite Wes Streeting has poured extra billions into the NHS as Health Secretary without securing any improvement in productivity or an end to crippling strikes.
Andy Burnham is a big noise in Manchester but his Cabinet performance under Gordon Brown was lacklustre at best. Angela Rayner is an inveterate class warrior and a cheerleader for the unions. The idea that she or any of them would make a competent Prime Minister is beyond fanciful.
Whoever leads Labour into the next election is likely to take a drubbing. The party is currently joint third in the polls with the Greens on a lowly 16 per cent and Reform UK at nearly twice that level.
By hitting its traditional supporters with ever higher taxes and allowing unchecked immigration to damage their communities and prospects, Labour has surrendered millions of heartland voters to Nigel Farage.
Under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership, the Tories, too, are beginning to emerge from the wreckage of 2024. Mrs Badenoch has hit her stride in the Commons, consistently making fools of Sir Keir and Ms Reeves. She is bringing forward thoughtful policies on migration, the economy and much else, and her party is inching forwards in the polls.
We must hope that she and Mr Farage can come to some sort of understanding by 2029 to create a right-of-centre alternative to the horrific prospect of a chimera coalition between Labour, the Greens and the Lib Dems.
As 2025 ends, we may at least console ourselves in the knowledge that we are 12 months nearer to a general election and the chance to give this mendacious, ramshackle Labour Government its marching orders.
The tunnel to that point may be dark, but a small light glimmers at the end of it. On that note, we wish all our readers a Happy New Year.