Laughably, Labour Minister Peter Kyle tried at the weekend to compare the hapless Rachel from Accounts with Apple legend Steve Jobs. I don't know how he kept a straight face, when the accurate description would have been Rachel destroyer of jobs. Tomorrow Rachel Reeves will put on a brave face in the Commons to deliver her Spending Review.
She will no doubt try to paper over the cracks with new spending packages that the government can't afford and some more ill-thought out spending cuts that won't save money - like Labour's barmy prison reforms of sending fewer people to jail, leaving more criminals on the streets, costing society more and pushing up the cost of policing.
The fact is, this government is presiding over an economic catastrophe. They've pushed taxes on jobs and businesses so high that employing people has become prohibitive, with the inevitable consequence that unemployment will rise and public finances will get worse.
There are only two feasible ways the government can make a genuine difference in terms of cutting spending. The first is to tackle the outrageous and growing cost of illegal immigration, and the second is to cut benefits. This is what Reeves should be focusing her review on. But does anyone really think that the former human rights lawyer Keir Starmer is ever going to do anything meaningful about immigration?
That leaves welfare reform as the only possible way for Reeves to get out of the mess she has got herself and the country into. By welfare reform, I don't mean the ham-fisted £5billon grab she tried in her emergency spring statement from the disability budget. I mean the hard work of getting people into work and tightening benefit rules.
In fact, if working-age benefits were taken back to pre-pandemic levels, a time when I was running the Work & Pensions department, it would save the government a whopping £49billon, in real terms, by the end of the fiscal period. Evidence shows this government is heading in the wrong direction. Last year, claims for Universal Credit shot up by a million to 7.5million. That means 39,000 new people getting benefits every week. And incredibly, nearly a million young people are not in employment, training or education.
This would be my focus. But it would require Reeves to reverse her harmful employer NIC hikes which are doing so much to destroy jobs - vacancies fell by 143,00 last year and starter jobs for the young fell at the fastest rate of all. Reeves, however, has no intention of doing that to ease unemployment. Instead, she is eyeing up even more tax hikes - refusing to rule out tax rises four times at the annual CBI dinner last week.
Labour doesn't get it. They don't see that if they keep taxing businesses there won't be any jobs for people to go into. What we will see is employment going down and the benefits bill going up, and if Labour do abolish the two children benefits cap the benefits bill will rocket. Getting people off benefits and into work is the only way to grow the economy and get this country out of its financial hole. Sadly they never learn.
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Last week's PMQs was Kemi Badenoch's best performance yet, and she definitely delivered her best line to date, observing that when she asked the Prime Minister what he believed in, he had to look in his pre-prepared red file to find the answer.
It perfectly summed up Starmer - a Prime Minister who believes in absolutely nothing and has to be told by his aides what his views are. I hope Kemi keeps up these truth bombs as they will resonate with the public who also see that Starmer is a dead loss and out of his depth.
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Just when you thought you'd seen the back of the high priestess of Net Zero, Greta Thunberg, the grinning pixie is back with a new global cause. This time she is sailing into the limelight alongside Game Of Thrones actor Liam Cunningham and French MEP Rima Hassan, transporting aid to Gaza.
Thankfully, her latest media stunt has been cut short. Greta and her team of 11 gremlins have now been safely intercepted, but obviously not before we were all shown her virtue-signalling Instagram pictures and videos. Please can we be spared any more of this attention seeker?
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It's outrageous that upmarket restaurant Hawksmoor kicked out Tommy Robinson and his friends from their restaurant because their staff didn't want to serve them.
Everyone agrees that they were being well-behaved, and so there was no justification for his ejection. It doesn't matter whether you or I approve of Robinson, his views or his actions. We simply cannot have a situation where businesses refuse to serve you because they don't approve of your opinions.
Where does that end? And if it's allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged, we could all find ourselves on the wrong end of that kind of attitude. In a free country we can't allow the thought police to decide who can and cannot be served. I hope people vote with their feet and do to Hawksmoor what they did to Robinson, and avoid them like the plague.
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Transparency is a wonderful thing. One of the most beautiful women in the world, Kylie Jenner, has just come clean: admitting that she isn't all natural and blessed with the best DNA, but has a surgeon and enhancements. I suppose there is no point being a billionaire if you can't buy yourself the perfect body!
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Who on earth would think there was justification to refuse a child NHS treatment because they attended a private school, as has been reported recently in London? Apparently, that is the depths to which two-tier Britain has sunk.
The Department of Health is now saying it's all been a matter of "miscommunication". Here's the alleged communication, so decide for yourselves, as it seems pretty clear cut to me: "We are unable to see this child as we do not provide a service to school-age children who attend an independent schools [sic]. We are only commissioned to provide a service to the mainstream schools." Once again this Labour government is fuelling jealousy and division, a process which started with its attack on private schools and the imposition of VAT on their fees. No wonder a millionaire is leaving this country every 45 minutes.