It seems that the new Labour government is determined to make itself even more unpopular with the public than the previous Conservative one over the next five years.
The new chancellor, Rachel Reeves, announced earlier in Parliament a savage package of cuts to public spending and will have to raise taxes to cover the so-called £20billion black hole in the nation’s finances.
- Winter fuel allowance to be restricted only to the poorest pensioners who claim pension credit. Ten million people who currently receive this allowance will have it stopped from this winter.
- Many much-needed infrastructure projects approved by the previous Conservative government will be scrapped.
- The controversial Rwanda refugee programme has also been scrapped.
- Pay rises have been awarded to some key public sector workers, however, most of them has to be funded by cuts to other areas of government.
In effect, Reeves is effectively reinforcing public austerity, which the nation has repeatedly suffered since 2008, in a bid to stick to her self-imposed spending rules and to appease the most of the mainstream media. Not surprisingly, the package was attacked by a wide range of opinions, from commentators to economists, from the opposition parties to charities. The Labour MPs who supported this need to give their collective heads a good shake, as they will face public anger at their regular surgeries. The government didn’t need to do this… it was clearly a political decision. Whenever there is a fiscal crisis, it is always the lower middle to working class people who have to suffer.
If this is what we’re going to get over the next five years, then we need to fight to vote Labour out of office at the next general election.