‘This is it, the day we all dreaded, a milestone in Britain’s descent into collectivism of the most repugnant kind.
We have just witnessed a monstrous Budget delivered by the worst Chancellor in living memory, an obscene mix of untruths and delusion, a farrago of bile, envy and nastiness that will vandalise our economy and ruin our society.’
https://telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/26/britain-now-socialist-country-what-reeves-budget-means/
‘The greatest threat to the UK is from within. It is the rise of Marxism, the complacency of our citizens, schools not teaching our history, politicians recklessly spending money we don’t have, bureaucrats targeting political opponents and a media that lies professionally.’
Mostly the words of Charlie Kirk concerning the USA but they describe well the situation that the British are facing.
'This is it, the day we all dreaded, a milestone in Britain’s descent into collectivism of the most repugnant kind.
We have just witnessed a monstrous Budget delivered by the worst Chancellor in living memory, an obscene mix of untruths and delusion, a farrago of bile, envy and… pic.twitter.com/p9KKycGoGi— Tess Summers 🏴🇮🇪 (@tesssummers98) November 27, 2025
ANDREW NEIL: This is a watershed moment in our economic history that will consign Britain to a Lost Decade https://t.co/Lno7KDJpnf
— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) November 27, 2025
In the end it was the depressingly old-fashioned Labour tax-and-spend Budget that all the leaks and kite-flying had indicated it would be.
But it was even worse and more significant than that: it marked a new era for Britain in which taxes and public spending remain permanently elevated.
In essence, Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ two Budgets have baked into our economy all the tax rises and public spending increases forced on the country during the pandemic – and then added even more taxes and extra spending.
The result is a very different country from the one we were in between 1980 and 2020, under Conservative and Labour governments. It is a watershed in our economic history. The overall tax burden, which used to be just above 30 per cent of GDP, is now heading for over 38 per cent – and destined to stay at that level for the foreseeable future.
Public spending, which was once under 40 per cent of GDP, is now heading for 45 per cent, perhaps more. Both spiked during the pandemic, for understandable reasons. They didn’t have to stay at emergency levels. But Labour has decided they will.
The cost to taxpayers is astronomical.
Taxes will rise another £26billion by the end of the decade on top of the £40billion the Chancellor levied in her first Budget last autumn – taken together it is the biggest tax rise any government has inflicted since Labour was last in thrall to tax-and-spend economics in the 1970s, the most miserable decade in Britain’s post-war history.
The Tories froze income tax thresholds in 2022-23 to repair the damage done to the nation’s finances by the pandemic.
The UK Budget involves spending today and taxing tomorrow
…
I thought I would leave to last this.
The OBR say today that this will drive growth across our country in the next five years…
… and in the longer term increase GDP by up to 1.4%.
That was from last year’s Budget and here is the OBR from this year.
Real GDP is forecast to grow by 1.5 per cent on average over the forecast, 0.3 percentage points slower than we projected in March, due to lower underlying productivity growth.
The whole subject of economic growth has gone rather quiet which is always very revealing. What has happened to house building after employing more bureaucrats?
And we will deliver on our manifesto commitment to hire hundreds of new planning officers, to get Britain building again.
Ditto this.
First, our portfolio of new financial investments will be delivered by expert bodies like the National Wealth Fund which must, by default, earn a rate of return at least as large as that on gilts.
Surely such an expert body has done something apart from employ bureaucrats in the last 12 months?
Because growth doesn’t just appear out of thin air.
Or does it? Anyway she has now twice raised taxes on those that do this.
It is built – patiently, and stubbornly, by the people who take risks,
By founders who bet their savings on an idea,
She just taxed savings more as well.
By firms breaking into new markets, developing new technologies, creating new jobs and new opportunities,
By the men and the women who work hard every day in all parts of our country.
Our job is not to watch from the sidelines, but to partner with them— backing them every step of the way.
Or as the Financial Times put it.
The detrimental effects of these measures on work, investment and confidence would be less concerning had the chancellor’s broader package included growth-enhancing measures.