Labours first 116 days in office show a pattern of mis-steps and back-tracking that raises eye-brows among political watch-dogs. Their handling of national finances adviser turn-overs and union-related spending decisions dont inspire much trust
Tomorrowʼs budget (the first Labour-made in about 14 years) hints at a major shift in policy: they want to re-write fiscal rules to get more money for building stuff. Rachel Reeves made it clear last week when she said: “We will be changing the measure of debt.“ This means more tax-payer backed borrowing without proper planning
The market already reacted to this news with bond rates going up which affects peoples mortgages (about 120000 home-owners might face higher rates each month). Its quite ironic since Labour criticized Liz Truss for similar things back in 2022. The whole thing looks even more weird because Reeves cancelled lots of building projects in mid-summer saying there wasnt enough money
- A303 Stonehenge tunnel got axed
- A27 bypass at Arundel stopped
- 23 railway projects cancelled
The real problem isnt just money - its how slow and expensive building stuff in UK has become. Take Lower Thames Crossing: we spent 300 million pounds just on paper-work; meanwhile Norway built a tunnel three times bigger for less cash. Between endless talks with nature groups fancy consultants and too many rules nothing gets done fast
This shows what happens when you make big promises without doing home-work first. As someone who might lead the Conservative Party I can say we need better plans than just throwing money at problems; that never works