{"id":79766,"date":"2025-01-23T07:52:19","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T07:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=79766"},"modified":"2025-01-23T09:09:34","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T09:09:34","slug":"is-labout-now-the-worst-government-of-the-last-fifteen-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/01\/23\/is-labout-now-the-worst-government-of-the-last-fifteen-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Labour now the worst government of the last fifteen years?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are three over-arching themes to the news this morning.<\/p>\n

The first is the toxicity of the UK's media. I have already noted that<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The second is the toxicity of the Trump administration. I will get to that.<\/p>\n

The third is the toxicity of the Labour government here in the UK. That is the subject of this post.<\/p>\n

What is very clear is that Labour is using this week, and the focus on Trump, as cover for some quite horrendous news stories.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I noted<\/a> its sacking of the chair of the Competition and Markets Authority that is tasked with protecting the public from abuse by monopolies, and their replacement by a person from Amazon, in a move that is intended to deliver growth, come whatever the cost might be to the ordinary people and the smaller businesses of this country.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, it became clear<\/a> that labour really will allow the expansion of three London airports. As the FT summarised it:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Worse, as the Guardian<\/a> noted:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Our right to protest against the despoilation of our planet is to be curtailed. Growth comes first, even if it will kill us all.<\/p>\n

Then there was the news<\/a> that Rachel Reeves is siding with banks and other financial institutions in the legal action brought by people who were mis-sold car loans, where there is clear evidence that compensation is owed. As the FT noted:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And then there was this by Chris Giles in the FT<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The demand is that Rachel Reeves deliver austerity to keep bond markets happy.<\/p>\n

I am sure she will be happy to oblige. As is now apparent, Labour is the most economically irresponsible government we have had in the last fifteen years, and I am including that headed by Liz Truss in that reckoning.<\/p>\n

It is clear that they think the green agenda is over.<\/p>\n

Consumers are now to be sacrificed to business, whatever the issue. In fact, the Financial Conduct Authority has asked<\/a> for guidance on how far they can go when doing this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Given that they have been told to promote economic growth above all else, that is quite a reasonable thing for them to do, but it clearly shows what Labour is thinking.<\/p>\n

And those who will be harmed by more austerity are being lined up for their suffering to begin.<\/p>\n

This is a government that does not care about anyone but the rich.<\/p>\n

This is a government that is indifferent to the people of the UK.<\/p>\n

This is a government without concern for our planet.<\/p>\n

It is a government willing to use all its powers to deny the people of the UK their rights.<\/p>\n

And I do think that makes it the worst government of the last fifteen years.<\/p>\n

But then, when you see your job as paving the way for the far right, as Labour ministers clearly do, this is precisely what you would do. If that's their criteria for success - and I think it must be - then everything they are doing makes complete sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are three over-arching themes to the news this morning. The first is the toxicity of the UK’s media. I have already noted that. The
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,35,108,74,147,118,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-economics","category-environment","category-green-new-deal","category-inequality","category-labour","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79766"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79778,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79766\/revisions\/79778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}