0:00
And that was used as a pretense to hike taxes by tens of billions of pounds
0:04
But a new report today claims that tax rises in the autumn are now inevitable
0:08
because of a toxic mix of a weaker economic growth, lower tax receipts
0:13
higher borrowing leading to not a £22 billion black hole, but now a whopping £50 billion black hole
0:22
That's right, folks, it's more than doubled. So has the Labour Party crashed the economy
0:27
Well, I'm joined now by my panel, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Quasi Quartang, and the Labour Councillor, Sebastian Sarlick
0:34
Gentlemen, welcome. Quasi, going to have to start with you, of course, because Rachel Reeves and the entire Labour Party said it was you as the Chancellor who crashed the economy
0:42
All of that. And so we had our moment. The problem I have with this is it looks like death by a thousand cuts, because essentially we're going into the doom loop that she, Rachel Reeves, talked about
0:54
where essentially you're raising taxes. From my point of view, you're disincentivising the economy
1:01
You're slowing growth. And when growth slows, you're going to have to raise taxes even more
1:05
to pay for the public services. And I think this will end at the end of the Parliament towards the end of the Parliament with some sort of wealth tax They not going to do it I think this year But I pretty sure that they will be looking at this And you got the left wing of the Labour Party who are even now saying we should have a
1:22
wealth tax. That would be disastrous. The chancellor herself realises that. You're going to basically
1:27
drive out wealthy people, people who pay large amounts of tax. You're going to disincentivise
1:34
growth, economic growth, because people will say, well, why should I work as hard as I am
1:40
if I'm paying all this money to the government? And that toxic mix, I think, will lead to
1:45
slower growth rates, higher taxes. And of course, you've got all these problems with migration
1:50
and all the rest of it. And it's not a very pretty outlook for the Labour Party. And I think going
1:56
into the, I mean, we're still about three and a half years, frankly, from an election, but they will be very, very concerned as we go into this
2:03
And I think, you know, even many of us said at the time last year when she put up national insurance on employers
2:10
that this would be a massive disincentive for business. People wouldn't be hired
2:14
Wages wouldn't be increased. People would be let go. And all the economic data suggests that that's what's happening
2:21
So I think it's, and we're only really at the beginning. I mean, we've got three more years, four more years of this
2:27
Okay. And I think it'll get worse
