In recent days, people across the country have been receiving their monthly payslips, only to find themselves hundreds of pounds worse off because of the decisions this Tory government has taken.
Boris Johnson’s 15th tax rise since taking office has come at the worst possible time. It has compounded the impact of rising prices, soaring bills and runaway inflation. It has made working people worse off.
It is a betrayal of the promises he made to the British public at the last election and one of the most self-defeating, damaging decisions a prime minister has taken in recent times. It is a policy of such profound stupidity and shortsightedness, only this Tory party and this prime minister could have come up with it.
They cannot say they were not warned. For months, ministers have ignored Labour’s pleas to scrap their tax rise on working people. They have ignored our plans to make oil and gas giants, which have made such incredible profits they refer to themselves as a “cash machine”, pay their fair share. And they have ignored our calls to cut VAT from household bills – a genuine Brexit benefit the whole country can get behind.
Taken together, these sensible, practical plans could save households hundreds and hundreds of pounds. But when the cabinet finally got round to having a meeting about the issues last week, the big idea that emerged was some nonsense about having fewer MOTs. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic.
During this election campaign, I have been asked time and time again why the government seems so reluctant, so slow, so timid in its response to the issues facing the country. Is it that they can’t act or that they don’t want to? The answer is they simply do not get it. Spending their time defending the indefensible, creating absurd distractions and squabbling among themselves has left them no space to get on with the jobs they were elected to do. It has rendered them incapable of governing.
We have seen the miserable spectacle of a billionaire chancellor – mired in allegations about his family tax affairs and whether he is profiting from businesses operating from Russia – declaring that taking action to reduce people’s energy bills would be “silly”. We have heard the prime minister talk about being tough on crime while facing allegations that his party ignored calls from the victim of a Tory MP now convicted of paedophilia. This madness cannot go on. Britain deserves so much better.
When Boris Johnson stands in the House of Commons and makes his absurd claims about the state we are in, I see a man who is making it up as he goes along. A man out of touch with the reality of life outside the bubble he operates in. A man who enjoys the trappings of power but is petrified by the reality of it.
But on the thinning benches of MPs behind him, I sense something altogether more profound: the dawning realisation that the game is up. For a decade, the Tories have failed to grow the economy. Wages have frozen. Investment has dried up. Particularly outside the big cities, life has got harder and opportunities have disappeared. With nothing left to cut and the economy flatlining, the Tories have decided to place the burden squarely on the shoulders of working people with tax rise after tax rise.
In the absence of any idea about where the country is going, what they want to achieve or how they are going to improve people’s lives, the Tories have resorted to desperate attacks and deflections. Why have they and their camp followers spent weeks wasting police time over Labour activists – including me – stopping for dinner during a campaigning session a year ago? Why are they making anonymous sexist attacks on female Labour MPs? Because they have nothing else to say. The sound you can hear is the dying groans of a clapped out government.
This Thursday, you have a chance to send the Tories a message. This will not be the sort of local election where vast swaths of councils change hands – but don’t let that put you off. Every vote for Labour is a vote to say that Britain will no longer put up with the Tories’ complacency when it comes to rising bills and prices. That squeezing working people to the pips isn’t a viable way to run an economy. That the sleaze and scandal this government has dragged us through is no one’s fault but their own. Your vote will be heard loud and clear by those enabling this shambolic government. A vote for Labour is a vote for restoring some dignity, pride and honesty to our politics – and for a party that is truly on your side.
• Keir Starmer is the leader of the Labour party
