Bitter reality
WHEN it comes to the dumb idea to saddle pubs with massive business rate hikes, Labour still can’t get its story straight.
Having been forced into a U-turn, ministers claimed they hadn’t had all the facts at the time the original decision was made in the Budget.
But officials now say Rachel Reeves’s Treasury team WAS fully aware of the consequences — with over 5,000 pubs having rateable values increased by up to 100 per cent.
Instead of listening, the Chancellor pressed ahead anyway.
We’re still to see the details of how she plans to clean up this mess.
Meanwhile, all the indications are there will be no help for the small High Street shops — hairdressers, newsagents, bookies — who have also been hit.
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All of which is yet more proof of Labour’s total ignorance of how business works and growth is created.
The longer they are in power, the less they seem to understand.
Pubs — and their customers — were dealt another blow yesterday with news that Guinness maker Diageo has been forced to put up the price of a pint by another 4p.
Never mind the black stuff.
With their miserable, financially punishing policies, Labour is dragging us all down into the brown stuff, too.
U-seless
WES Streeting yesterday said Labour is running out of excuses and must start to “get it right first time.”
A few hours later came the news that No10 is abandoning its flagship plan for compulsory ID cards.
It was a bad idea in the first place — not least because of the State’s appalling record in keeping our personal data safe.
But, while few will mourn its passing, the demise of mandatory digital ID does go down as yet another Labour U-turn.
Which takes the total to 13 and counting since Sir Keir Starmer took office.
To call this Government a circus would be a disservice to clowns.
Unfair cop
HOW much longer can the West Midlands chief constable cling on to his job?
Craig Guildford knew that youths in Birmingham — whipped up by Islamist extremists — were threatening violence towards Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.
Instead of tracking down and punishing those thugs, his force covered up the evidence.
Then his officers tried to retrofit a dodgy dossier to justify banning Jewish supporters from the city.
It was a police fit-up born of a cowardly refusal to tackle Islamist hate on his own doorstep.
Guildford shouldn’t wait for the Chief Inspector of Constabulary’s report into this shameful episode.
He should do the decent thing — and quit now.
