Can you give three examples of the lies that the Labour Party told in order to get elected?
Before the election Rachel Reeves said “we don’t need higher taxes. What we need is growth… and I have no plans to increase any taxes beyond those which we have already set out.” Then, Reeves said she would increase taxes by £8.5 billion, spending by £9.5 billion, and borrowing by £3.5 billion by 2028/29. Last week, she raised taxes by £40 billion, spending by £76 billion, and borrowing by £36 billion.
And her claims about the so-called fiscal hole have also fallen apart. Before the Budget, the Treasury briefed the media that the OBR would publish a full breakdown of the £22 billion figure, and justify what Reeves has been saying since July. But that is not what happened. The OBR report identified £9.5 billion of in-year spending pressures – pressures of the kind that arise every year, and were never denied by the Tories – and said the remainder of Reeves’s claim was explained by Labour’s own public sector pay deals. “Nothing in our review,” the OBR Chairman said, “was a legitimisation of that £22 billion.”
Before the election the Environment Secretary, Steve Reed, said Labour had “no intention” of changing agricultural property relief for inheritance tax, and said it was “desperate nonsense” to claim otherwise. But the Budget cut the relief for thousands of farms.
Keir Starmer was in on all those promises made during the election campaign, and he knew as well as Reeves did that he would break them. We have known since his Labour leadership campaign five years ago that such dishonesty is his modus operandi. Then, he promised to nationalise rail, mail, energy and water, end outsourcing in the public sector, get rid of Universal Credit and scrap tuition fees – only to drop the commitments as soon as he won.
Starmer led us to believe that Labour would retain the Winter Fuel Payment, and said nothing about scrapping the £86,000 cap on social care costs for elderly and disabled.
I've been running through the PM Keir Starmer's broken promises, u-turns and pledges, and it's exhausting. If I tried listing them all here I'd quickly run out of space.
He started by lying to his own party, winning support for the Labour leadership with 10 key pledges that included abolishing student tuition fees and the two-child benefit cap, and nationalising public services. All quickly dropped.
Having secured the support of the Corbynite left he stepped up his efforts by lying to the rest of us to win this year's general election.
Starmer led us to believe that Labour would retain the Winter Fuel Payment, and said nothing about scrapping the £86,000 cap on social care costs for elderly and disabled.
He also claimed he would "reshape" Labour's relationships with businesses only for chancellor Rachel Reeves to shaft them in her first Budget.
Starmer made a manifesto pledge to not increase taxes on working people. Yet the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) reckons 80% of Labour's employer's national insurance hike will be passed onto workers in the form of lower wages, the rest to consumers via higher prices.
This week he was exposed in an even more blatant mistruth.
While seeking power, Starmer publicly backed 1950s Waspi women's fight for "fair and fast compensation" after the state pension age for women was hiked by five years.
Last week, he dropped them like a stone. As did every other cabinet minister who took the Waspi pledge: Rachel Reeves, Liz Kendall and Angela Rayner. Lying is infectious.
That do you?
