This country expects the very highest levels of probity and honesty from our politicians. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has shown herself to be sorely lacking in both.
The Mail on Sunday’s revelation today that she failed to heed warnings – not once, but twice – over the lucrative rental of her family home raises further serious questions about her integrity.
Ms Reeves and her husband were told by two estate agencies that to rent out their four-bedroomed house in south London they would require a £900 landlord’s licence.
Then there is the question of her conduct since the whole affair was exposed. She initially professed ignorance of the need for a permit, before backtracking to admit the need for one had been discussed.
The Prime Minister last week wrote to his Chancellor to say he regarded her paperwork gaffe as an ‘inadvertent failure’. But can it really be ‘inadvertent’ to have made the same mistake over and over again? Crucially, it remains unclear whether Reeves was fully candid with Keir Starmer when she finally coughed up.
If she failed to tell the PM she had been advised by two experts, it raises yet more questions over her scruples.
Reeves’ apparent lack of transparency over her personal affairs can hardly be a surprise, however, as her party rides roughshod over promises it made to the electorate. Labour pledged not to increase taxes on working people as part of its mendacious election campaign last year. Ever since, this shameless Government has been squirming to get itself out of that deal.
In this month’s Budget, the Chancellor is set to exclude anyone who earns over £46,000 a year from her definition of a ‘working person’. Teachers, specialist nurses, lorry drivers and experienced police constables would come into scope for additional taxes on their income as a result.
The Government is attempting to add spurious clauses to the definition of a working person because the economy is flatlining under their stewardship, ministers have failed to get a grip on public spending and, as a consequence, Ms Reeves needs to squeeze more money from the taxpayer.
Ms Reeves (pictured) and her husband were told by two estate agencies that to rent out their four-bedroomed house in south London they would require a £900 landlord’s licence
This spurious £46,000 threshold will target not the mega-wealthy but, rather, more than seven million workers who are only slightly above the median full-time salary of £39,000.
The workers to be excluded from Labour’s manifesto pledge may perhaps have a take-home pay of £2,920 a month, after deductions for income tax, National Insurance and the minimum five per cent contribution to a workplace pension. By comparison, the current benefits cap stands at £2,110 for couples and lone parents in London, and £1,835 a month elsewhere.
Is Labour really telling us that the gap between welfare dependency and wealth is as little as £810 a month?
The Government’s desperate attempt to extricate itself from its self-inflicted public spending black hole would divide Britain into three groups: benefits claimants, the low-paid and, finally, every other worker, who would be mere tax-fodder for Ms Reeves’ incompetence.
By proceeding down this treacherous route the Government is not merely squeezing the middle class but attempting to snuff it out of existence altogether.
In this – as in so much else – Labour is guilty of a jaw-dropping lack of integrity.
