DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Tax rises risk giving Labour an open goal

DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Tax rises risk giving Labour an open goal

Anyone who believes the cost of living crisis is already biting hard is today in for a rude awakening.

Compared to the savaging ahead, the past weeks have been a mere nip on the ankle of family budgets.

The arrival of a new financial year signals a barrage of crippling bills, tax rises and price increases – the most vicious squeeze on family incomes since the 1950s.

The average household will pay an extra £700 a year for gas and electricity. Council tax, water rates and broadband are going up. And rocketing inflation means the cost of filling up the car and buying food becomes more expensive by the day.

Make no mistake, millions up and down the country are in for a very rough ride.

The arrival of a new financial year signals a barrage of crippling bills, tax rises and price increases [stock image]

True, many factors fuelling the crisis are beyond the Government’s control. But not all. Why, for example, are ministers worsening the hardship by stubbornly insisting on the national insurance hike?

This not only hurts working people, but also employers. It is a profoundly un-Conservative tax, making families poorer and businesses less competitive.

Of course, the Mail understands the need to balance the books after the eye-watering debts incurred during the pandemic.

But the best way to get money into Treasury coffers is the old Tory way – by encouraging hard work and enterprise.

If Britons are taxed to high heaven, they won’t have money to pump into shops, pubs and restaurants, nor the confidence to grow job-creating companies.

It’s not rocket science: Ditching punitive levies ultimately brings in more revenue.

Imposing them on the already struggling is an unwise gamble. It conveys that the Government doesn’t take seriously the cost of living pain – and offers a deeply unimpressive Labour party an open goal.

Develop a conscience

By sensibly handing the Foreign Office responsibility for the aid programme, the Government aimed to align handouts with Britain’s overseas policy goals.

So how is that working out? We reveal that £1.3billion of the bloated development budget is being sent to nations unwilling to condemn Putin’s brutal assault on Ukraine.

Fence-sitters include India (wealthy enough to have its own space programme).

The Mail understands the concept of realpolitik. Countries act in their own best interests. But then we should too.

Let’s stop paying a fortune to those appeasing a murderous, maternity hospital-bombing psychopath and his illegal war.

Why not use the money instead to help those fleeing the carnage?

Let’s get over Covid

It’s a mark of how far we’ve come since those fretful days of two years ago.

From today, Covid tests are no longer routinely handed out for free (although each one costs taxpayers a chunky sum).

Predictably, doomster scientists warn it could lead to an explosion of infections.

But we have to move on. Britain is suffering economic and social long Covid: Huge debts, a healthcare backlog, children woefully behind on their education.

(And how typical of Whitehall ineptitude that a firm’s contract to help pupils catch up has quickly been abandoned as a flop).

Cutting out the scaremongering and incompetence would be a giant step towards getting Britain back on its feet.

  • It is revolting that water companies discharged raw sewage into our rivers and coastal seas 372,533 times last year, often illegally. There is now a plan for new infrastructure which will eliminate 40 per cent of these discharges. And who will foot the massive bill? Lo and behold, the hard-pressed customer. Why? The polluters make obscene profits. They alone should pay for the clean-up.

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