In preparation for the Budget yesterday evening, the Treasury portrait of Nigel Lawson, one of the great chancellors of modern history, was replaced with a portrait of Ellen Wilkinson, a founding member of the UK Communist Party.
Ellen Wilkinson, who Chancellor Rachel Reeves described as one of her leading lights, was paid £500 by the Soviet Union to travel to Moscow in 1921 to visit the Red Trade Union Conference. Guido Fawkes has kindly revealed all this information.
Indeed, Wilkinson had an active relationship with Soviet spy Otto Katz from the 1930s, Stalin’s main man in Europe, who was regarded by MI5 as the most important communist agent outside Russia. Now, really, what would have been the difference if they had used a portrait of another former Labour MP and minister?
He was actually Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, say Oswald Mosley. Well, all of this made for a fitting preface to today’s budget that raided £40billion of your money. Rachel Reeves began by congratulating herself for being a woman.
Jacob Rees Mogg shared his views on the Autumn statement
GB News
Well, at least there’s one Labour minister who knows what a woman is, I suppose.
Anyway, she then went on to breach Labour’s key manifesto pledge and went ahead with increasing taxes on working people. As Rishi Sunak explained in his inspirational response, the increase on employer National Insurance contributions is a tax on working people.
It’s actually one that Rachel Reeves has said herself was a tax on working people, but especially when compounded with increases to the living wage, it means businesses are incurring increases of employment costs of 8 per cent, and this will be especially hard for low margin businesses and for those looking for their first job.
Businesses will now fall prey to death duties, which means people will be forced to sell up as the country has a long-standing problem getting businesses to grow from their start-up sides.
This will merely be exacerbated by the addition of death duties, capital gains taxes being increased two which confirms the fears that triggered the exodus of the wealthy and the complete abolition of the non-dom regime, will be encouraging even more to go.
But how many times during the election did we hear Labour would pay for its plans by growing the economy every day, during every media round?
The Labour growth forecasts suggest precisely the opposite.
Bear in mind Labour worships at the feet of the OBR. I think it’s useless, but the Labour Party likes it.
It forecasts for this year 1.1 per cent growth in 2025, 2 per cent for 2026, 1.8 per cent and down to 1.5 per cent thereafter.
Labour is condemning the nation to a future of low growth and high taxes, with an ever-growing state, stagnant productivity and declining living standards as ever.
