You have to make tough decisions to fix things, so people are going to hate you for it. It’s a no win scenario where the most likely outcome is not, as some were predicting before the election, a Labour government for at least the next decade, but that you are cast out by the electorate at the next available opportunity, to wander in the political wilderness for another fourteen years.

As I say, it’s easy to feel sympathy in these circumstances.

But to then take office and institute a raft of policies guaranteed to simply make the situation worse; there’s no excuse for that, and what little sympathy I and many other people had, has rapidly evaporated.

Which brings me to the title of this piece; why 2025 is going to be an awful year for Labour.

Finance

Much has been written about the Chancellor, and the decisions she has made since taking office. We’ve been told that the budget was a one off, a necessity to ‘fix the public finances’, and having done it, would eliminate the requirement to return at a later date to take more from us in tax. Let’s see shall we?

Despite annoying pensioners, farmers, ‘hard working people’, homeowners, landlords, retailers, hospitality, small business owners; in fact most of the population, with her extremely unpopular tax rises, the chancellor is still adamant that she’s done nothing wrong and has taken all the right decisions to fix the public finances.

Except she hasn’t. She’s simply poured fuel on the fire.

The oft repeated “£22 billion black hole” was, we discover from various sources, largely created by the immediate granting of high wage rises to public sector workers within days of taking office. What’s worse is that these rises were unconditional. No requirement to improve productivity, no requirement to increase output or hit targets and nothing to stop them returning to the table and asking for more in the immediate future.

Having signalled that the public purse is open, the first problem Labour will have to deal with is that 2025 will see a rise in union demands for more and bigger pay rises for their members.

Meanwhile, the government is now spending more on national debt interest than the entire defence budget, have enormous liabilities in their public sector pension funds, which are getting worse by the day, and with their National Insurance rises, public sector pay awards and an increase in minimum wage, have triggered an inevitable rise in inflation (more of that in a bit).

Just this week, the Prime Minister has issued an edict to several Quangos insisting that they prioritise growth. And if you ever needed a clear signal that the government are hopelessly out of their depth, it’s in this one act. Insisting that public service regulators prioritise growth is nothing short of madness.

Despite history teaching us that command and control economies always fail, we seem to be heading towards ‘5 year tractor production plan’ territory. With six measurable milestones, five missions, three foundations and two plans for change, we have descended into a buzzword bingo card, where everything is measured in soundbites and management speak, with nothing actually being done to fix the original problem.

Not a soul on the high street could tell you what any of these missions or milestones are and no one really cares. They simply won’t work. Centrally dictating how the economy grows is as likely to work as King Cnut was at stopping the tide.

The only way to get out of this mire is to let the private sector flourish, reduce the size of the public sector and create an environment that will encourage both inward and foreign investment in U.K. PLC. Then, allowing more people to retain more of their money will allow them to make market based decisions on how to spend it, driving consumer confidence and growth. 

It’s not rocket science, but it’s the opposite of the path Labour have chosen, so expect 2025 to be a rocky road for finance, and expect the chancellor to find more ways to take more tax from each and every one of us.

Inflation

If there’s one certainty for 2025, it’s that inflation will rise; it’s inevitable. From the moment Labour entered power they immediately sparked a wave of inflation by granting pay awards to junior doctors and train drivers. On its own it wasn’t enough to drive inflation up significantly, but increasing the minimum wage and increases to employers’ National Insurance have all but guaranteed it will rise.

Wage inflation is one thing, but what it typically triggers is price inflation as well. Businesses exist only through making a profit, and to do that they need to sell their products and services for more than it costs them to make or supply them. Increasing the cost of labour shrinks the profit margins, so this can only be redressed by increasing prices. 

Some might argue that there is another way, that they could make greater efficiencies to retain more profit. It sounds great on paper, but try doing it in practice. Most healthy businesses are pretty lean as it stands; there’s very little to cut or improve to help with profit margins. Certainly nothing to get back the NI hike.

And of course if you’re going to argue for greater efficiencies in the private sector, you can equally make the case that the public sector should be doing this. But no, we’re now at the point where there are more public sector workers than at any point in history, and that number seems unlikely to shrink anytime soon. Apparently, public sector efficiencies are not sufficiently important to become a mission, milestone or target.

Also fuelling inflation is the cost of energy, which is eye wateringly high in the U.K. We have the highest electricity prices in the world currently and they will also rise again in the future. There’s no way that our bills will be £300 lower as promised in the Labour manifesto. A simple look at the cost of the feed in tariffs and contracts for difference in the renewables market, which is currently being turbocharged by Ed Miliband, and you will see that we are locking in inevitable price rises.

An increase in energy prices will drive an increase in raw material costs, whilst tax rises and a general disincentive for the private sector to grow for fear of getting taxed means that inflation will be nowhere near the 2% Bank of England target for most of 2025. Which means interest rates will remain high and government receipts will be lower than expected. There will be little or no fiscal headroom due to the policies they are currently enacting.

No matter how much the Prime Minister commands it, this problem simply isn’t going away.

Energy

One of the policies guaranteed to upset most people, most of the time, is the current obsession with Net Zero.

Quite apart from the fact that most people in the street can’t tell you what it is, or how you measure it, when you examine what is being proposed for our country in the name of Net Zero it becomes apparent that we are simply careering towards disaster.

Far from freeing us from international gas markets, a claim reliably repeated by Ed Miliband whenever anyone questions his mission, it will ensure we are enslaved to it. Shutting off our own production of oil and gas from the North Sea, slowly closing our nuclear reactors and not replacing them, and covering the countryside with miles of solar panels and windmills will guarantee we have an unreliable and expensive energy supply.

Forget for a moment that we will need to build ‘spinning reserve’ for all the panels and windmills; quite simply gas turbines ready to jump into action when our renewables can’t produce enough energy. The fact that we already know we cannot produce enough energy means, if we’re not producing gas ourselves from the North Sea, we will be importing it to keep the lights on. Which means we will be paying whatever prices are dictated on the international markets. Far from freeing us from their variability, we are wedding ourselves to it.

Meanwhile, in the name of driving ‘clean, green energy’ Ed and the rest of the crew are busy forcing planning decisions through to carpet agricultural land with solar panels and erect a forest of pylons across the country, particularly down the eastern part of Britain which is about to be blighted by these eyesores.

Whilst renewables do have a part to play in supplying our energy needs, they are simply not reliable enough to form the backbone of Britain’s energy strategy. With no viable way of storing it (batteries can’t store more than a few hours of the country’s needs) we are at the whim of the elements. 

The battles that have already begun will become more obvious and mainstream in 2025 and there will be an almighty clash between the government and the people over this. As more people wake up to the fact that what is being proposed is simply not feasible, no amount of reassurances and soundbites will convince them to destroy their local communities in the name of progress.

Foreign Policy

The world is a tricky place to navigate these days. What passed for foreign policy in the 1950’s simply won’t work today. With an ever connected world, news from across the globe can be in our hands within seconds. Events far from Britain end up causing enormous issues domestically.

From the Black Lives Matter protests during lockdown, to the more recent troubles in Gaza, these events far from our shores lead directly to issues at home.

The Labour government haven’t had a terribly good start in this area either, despite the Prime Minster globe trotting in the first six months, they have made errors which will cost us dear in 2025.

From being particularly rude to a man who will shortly be the 47th President of the United States of America, to trying to give away the Chagos Islands without a thought for the people who should rightfully live there, the Chagossians, our foreign policy looks amateur.

Insisting that we should put “climate and nature at the heart of our foreign policy” displays a deep naivety and a lack of understanding of what is required in the real world. Climate and nature mean nothing to the Ukrainians defending their borders, nor to the Indians driving their economy forward, nor the Chinese, for whom coal fired power stations are a necessity.

With European growth stagnating, and Labour insisting we should build a closer ‘special’ relationship with the EU, our eye is firmly off the ball at the moment and I expect events overseas in 2025 will prove the mettle of the current government one way or the other.

Immigration

This is the simmering problem that vexes more Britons than just about anything else. The visible part is characterised by waves of small boats illegally crossing the channel, only to be picked up by our lifeboats and navy, ferried to Britain, where they are housed at taxpayer expense for as long as it takes to process their applications for asylum.

Never mind that we have a system already that requires people to go though the proper channels. Never mind that it is illegal to simply cross in a small boat and simply expect to walk onshore. And let’s not forget that Labour promised to ‘smash the gangs’. What we have seen so far is the removal of any deterrent to people trying to cross illegally and an increase in the number of boats and people crossing. So much for smashing this vile trade.

What people miss, however, is the invisible immigration; the hundreds of thousands of people who arrive legally every year and are simply waved through to become part of our country. Figures are released, then quietly revised after the event showing that just short of a million people a year are arriving on our shores, with just 4% of that figure being in small boats.

It is true that Labour have continued the conservative policies that restricted legal migration, so we can expect the figures to come down a bit next year, plus they have also managed to send some refused asylum seekers home. But with so many arriving from areas considered unsafe to return them to such as Iran, Afghanistan and Syria, the problem isn’t going away.

The reality is that immigration is an issue. It’s an issue of resources, cost and integration. 2025 will probably see a slight drop in numbers, but Labour’s problems may well come from the ongoing cost to the taxpayer from their inability to stem the tide of humanity washing onto our shores.

Housebuilding

One of the great pledges of the Labour 2024 manifesto was that they would “…deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation”. To this end they have announced that they will be delivering 1,500,000 new homes during the life of this parliament, which equates to 25,000 homes every month, or over 800 a day. 

How many of these will be ‘affordable’ and how many social housing is still unspecified, but we’ve been told that they will definitely deliver these homes. Which is where the problems will start in 2025.

If you speak to anyone in the housebuilding sector, they will tell you quite simply that this number is totally unachievable.

Not only are we having problems getting the raw materials needed to build a house, there simply aren’t enough skilled tradespeople to build them. It does’t matter how ambitious you are, nor how big your wild pronouncements are, without the resources and infrastructure, the entire project is dead in the water. 

And even if they did, by some miracle, achieve this number, as Trevor Philips pointed out to Angela Rayner in a recent interview, most of them will be filled with the migrants that arrive during the time they take to build them.

If these new homes are not social housing but instead for the public to purchase, how are they going to ensure they are affordable? Most young people can’t afford to buy these days, particularly in London and the South East, and affordability has gone from four times annual earnings in 2000 to almost nine times annual earnings in 2024.

We all understand the problems with underperformance in the housebuilding sector, but Labour’s plans simply won’t work. By the time 2025 draws to a close and the numbers delivered are shown to be so far behind as to be unachievable within the life of this parliament, expect a downward revision of this figure and a finger pointing blame game to ensue.

Conclusion

There’s so much more that I could write highlighting the areas in which Labour will come unstuck in 2025. I’ve not even touched on the NHS which is beyond reforming, nor on the cost of debt on the international markets. I’ve completely missed education and free speech, the introduction of a new regulator in football (which will end disastrously), the quangos Labour have created since coming to office, nor the sheer number of people employed in the public sector.

I’ve also dodged past the fact that judges now appear to make law in this country, not parliament, and the inevitable protests from Farmers which will lead to food shortages on shelves.

There’s also the small matter of the upcoming local elections in 2025 where they will be trounced by opposition parties like Reform, and the inevitable by-election that will happen next year where they will lose their majority and lead people to question everything they are doing.

2025 will lay bare the structural failures of the British Government, from national debt to unaffordable public sector pay schemes, along with the smaller things that are simply ridiculous like trying to mandate which cars people can buy and which boilers people can have. 

And if all of this was simply the result of the dreadful mistakes made by the conservatives whilst in office, as I said as the start, there might be an element of forgiveness from the public and a willingness to give them time to sort out the mess. But entering office and immediately making things worse means that 2025 will, without doubt, be an ‘annus horribilis’ for the Labour government.

The post Why 2025 will be an ‘annus horribilis’ for Labour appeared first on Emma Guy Reform.

You might think that having had so much time to think about how to make this country prosperous again that it would have been better received than it has been. But no, it went down like a lead balloon. It was a disaster.

From the pre budget scrapping of the winter fuel allowance to the inheritance tax on farmers which could destroy food security here in the U.K., the entire budget was ill conceived and muddle headed.

On top of that, it was tin eared.

She claimed to have found a £22bn black hole in the accounts on day one in the job but the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) have said that any black hole, such as it was, had been created by their day one largesse in handing huge pay rises to train drivers and doctors, astonishingly without insisting on any improvement in productivity. Even the Institute for Fiscal Studies have said that the deficit was there in plain sight for anyone who wanted to look for it before the election, and it was definitely not as big as she makes out.

Despite instructions from Labour’s communications team for everyone to parrot the same tired lines of a £22bn black hole, 14 years of Tory chaos and this being a one off budget to fix the problems of the country, few of my constituents are believing this rhetoric. My inbox has been filled with people who are going to struggle with these new taxes, including lifelong Labour supporters who now regret their vote at the last election.

The headline tax rise was a swingeing increase in employers national insurance which we are told is not a tax on working people (however a working person is defined). Unfortunately, the reality is that it is exactly that. Employers were meant to make up for this tax by increasing prices and reducing future pay rises; so it is a tax on working people as well as business owners, (who are also working people, Chancellor).

Underpinning the budget is a hope, more like a gamble, that inflation remains low, at or around the Bank of England target of 2%. But it won’t, it will rise. It has to rise, in part due to this budget.

Feed in costs from the budget such as increases in employers national insurance will lead to increased prices for goods and services. Raising the minimum wage wage might sound good in theory, but when it happens it forces upward pressure on all wages in a firm as the wage gaps shrink between staff. Eroding differentials mean businesses either lose existing staff who feel undervalued by seeing new starters coming in on not much less than them, or pay them more, leading to wage inflation.

Add to this the truly ruinous green energy policies being pushed by Ed Milliband, and far from everyone’s energy bills coming down by £300 as promised in their manifesto, they will be rising now, and again in the future. In fact I predict that if they continue down this path that energy costs to homes and businesses could become unaffordable for many people.

The entire budget is built on the hope that inflation remains low and that interest payments on the £140bn she’s looking to borrow will remain stable. But they won’t. Interest rates will rise and inflation will rise and no matter how hard she scolds the Bank of England for their inability to control it, they will be powerless to prevent it.

Like a car crash in slow motion, her budget is doomed from the off, and for all the ‘taking the tough decisions’ and it being a ‘one off budget’ meaning she won’t have to come back and ask us for more money, she’ll have to ask us for more money. Probably sooner rather than later.

The Labour government has fallen from grace with such spectacular and unprecedented speed that despite blaming everything on the nasty Tories, 14 years of chaos and a 22bn black hole, even their own supporters are publicly saying they’ve got it wrong.

They had a chance to do the right thing. Despite only getting 20% of the public vote, their mandate gave them a chance to finally wipe the slate clean, and set the country back on a prosperous track once again.

But they’ve failed.

They’ve failed to ‘smash the gangs’ delivering migrants into the uk, they’ve failed to stop using U.K. hotels to house them, they’ve failed to reduce energy bills (they’ve just gone up £300, not down) and they failed to boost the economy.

This budget will be seen as one of the most dangerous ever delivered by a chancellor as it does nothing to address the problems the British economy faces, and simply borrows even more money to hose at an ever expanding public sector that cannot drive efficiency and in many cases, cannot deliver.

What Britain needed was something different. What we got was an acceleration of the very things that drove us to where we are today. Far from solving our problems, it’s going to turbo charge them.

Before this election, people were talking about a two or three term Labour government being elected. If the budget and their performance to date is anything to go by then they’ll be lucky to complete one term. Rising inflation will undermine every ambition this budget has and simply propel us towards the arms of the IMF. It’s like the 1970s all over again.

Despite their attempts to portray themselves as economically prudent, this budget has simply proven that Labour are, as always, a high tax and spend party, despite the fact that it never has, and never will work.

Come the next election, I have a feeling that the public won’t be quite so generous.

The post Rising inflation will kill Labour’s budget appeared first on Emma Guy Reform.

I was in a restaurant where she was sat on an adjacent table. After finishing her starter she got up and wandered over to our table. 

“Are you visiting our town?” she said. “Thank you for coming to Llandudno”.

We started to chat to her and she was genuinely interested in where we were from, why we had chosen to come to Llandudno, and whether we were spending money locally, helping to support the local economy. 

She was proud of the town and wanted to do her best to promote it to everyone she could.

Talking later to her son, who she was dining with, we discovered that she is now in her early 80s and hadn’t been Mayor for some years, but she still felt she needed to use every opportunity to talk to people she met and promote the town.

That, is a life of service.

She didn’t expect anything from us; she certainly wasn’t expecting any freebies and definitely no recognition. If I wasn’t writing this blog then no one other than her family and me would know that this even happened. She just wanted to promote Llandudno. It was in her nature to do it, even though it was no longer her role or responsibility.

So, when you hear politicians talk about a life of service or a government of service, remember this lovely ex-Mayor.  She exemplifies the difference between ‘people’ politicians who do it for their local community, and ‘career’ politicians who do it for altogether different reasons.

When you next hear anyone in the political sphere talking about ‘service’ ask yourself whether you think the service is for the community or for themselves. If what they are saying and doing are the same thing, and their actions really are consistent with a life of service and a life well spent then support and congratulate them. If, however, you feel that you are hearing weasel words, then feel free to call them out.

The post A life dedicated to service appeared first on Emma Guy Reform.

Once you graduate, you join your local force where you work long, hard shifts, often at unsociable hours, for relatively low pay and a guarantee of discomfort. Every time you clock into work you can be sure that if you are policing on the frontline you will be dealing with harrowing situations, distressful situations and most probably, dangerous situations.

You go to work knowing the chances of being abused, spat on, injured or even killed are higher than in any other profession, other than the armed forces.

Yet still people volunteer to do this.

They know that the legal system demands precision, accuracy and reams of paperwork before any arrest becomes a conviction. They know that nothing in the job is easy and every day will be hard. And despite this, they still come forward.

I know this because the picture you can see accompanying this blog is me at my passing out parade to become a Special Constable in the late 1980s. I’m the one on the right; the Mayor of Northwich is leaning in to speak to me.

The more observant of you might also spot that this picture was taken at the back of the Northwich Police Station, at the top of the Sheath Street car park.

Back then I volunteered because I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to help my local community and keep them safe from the bad things that might happen to them if I could. I know that my contribution as a Special was only a small one, but to me, it was important to give something back.

What drew me in were the basics of Peelian Principles, those principles laid down by Sir Robert Peel when he first established the modern professional police force back in 1829. Now, 200 years on, our brave policemen and women are once again at the forefront of public perception and as such, it’s important we remember the basic principles around which their role is based.

Sir Robert Peel knew that the police could only be effective if the population allowed them to exist; basically, policing by consent. People need to consent and to agree that the police are there, representing the public and ensuring law and order are maintained.

The principles he laid down are worth repeating as they are as relevant today as they were back then. They are:

1. The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.

2. The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions.

3. Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.

4. The degree of cooperation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.

5. Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.

6. Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient.

7. Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

8. Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.

9. The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.

Over the last two weeks, we have seen serious disorder on our streets to which the police have been called. They have held fast against this monstrous aggression, and have held fast to the Peelian principles as best they can.

As police on the ground, they have to deal with situations as they arise. They are not responsible for the punishment end of the legal spectrum, nor for decisions on whether to punish offenders or not. They can only do the job they are asked to do at the moment they have to do it.

The public, however, don’t see this. They see inconsistencies in policing. They see one type of march or demonstration being ‘kettled’ whilst the other side gets a free run and can wave banners bearing offensive slogans whilst the police stand by and do nothing.

Police don’t get a say in this. Orders come from higher up. 

People in the establishment are making these decisions, much as they have made the decision to arrest, prosecute and imprison rioters within days. This is a decision they have made. They could, if they wanted, make the same decision to deal with rape cases, where there are currently over 180 cases more than two years old in the system. The average wait time for a rape case to come to court is over one year.

The public are frustrated. They expect consistency from our legal system. They expect that if someone decides to attack a police officer carrying out their duty they are arrested, prosecuted and promptly jailed, as has happened to the rioters. What they also expect is that this process is carried out impartially (principle number 5) and that the law applies whatever your race, religion or ethnic background and wherever you committed the offence, be it in a town centre or at an airport.

The law is the law and must be upheld. Our police force do a fabulous job in this country and we should all support them and condemn anyone who thinks it is fine to attack them. We should never forget the seventh principle; “the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.” In short, the policeman or woman on the front line is someone’s son or daughter and most likely, someone’s mother or father. They should not be subjected to abuse because it is incumbent on all of us to uphold the law of the land.

I was proud to be a member of Cheshire Constabulary, giving something back to my community. And whilst I witnessed both awful and wonderful things during my years in the force, I also felt honoured to be alongside men and women who would put their lives on the line every day to protect and defend their local community,

Remember, the police are not responsible for policy in the U.K., just for keeping law and order. If anyone has a grievance with the state of the U.K. then I would suggest that they raise it with their local M.P. and ultimately with the current government. Only they have the ability to affect reform and they should be in no doubt about the strength of feeling amongst the people in this county who are longing for a better, calmer, more cohesive and tolerant society.

The post Policing has changed, except that it hasn’t appeared first on Emma Guy Reform.

The councillors who fought against it celebrated, whilst, below the line, the comments split between people who thought that NIMBYs had prevented a useful development to those who couldn’t bear the thought of an average of 193 two-way lorry movements per day, or 20 two-way trips per hour.

Amidst all of this noise, a point not lost to those commenting, was that we currently have a massive incinerator being built on the outskirts of town at Lostock Gralam. This too, was a development that had objections from parish, local, and town councillors and was eventually refused by Cheshire West and Chester Planning Department.

But it’s being built all the same.

The argument used back then was that it was the wrong solution to the problem of residual waste in Cheshire which was declining then and continues to decline to this day. It was unwanted by the residents, unneeded by the community, and would do nothing to help our local environment.

Those with long memories will recall, however, that it was finally called in for Public Inquiry and despite over 20,000 signatures against it, the then Secretary of State Eric Pickles gave it the green light in 2012, declaring it to be ‘an infrastructure project of national importance’.

In short, we don’t care what you little people think, we are the government, we know best and you’re having it whether you like it or not.

That project, when it commences operation in 2026, will mean an additional 276 HGV journeys a day along King Street; 30% more than the solar plant was projecting.

Which brings me back to the solar plant. I’m sorry to say that I fear that despite all the objections, this too will go ahead.

Labour has made clear their ambition to ‘double onshore, treble solar and quadruple offshore power’. Whilst they haven’t stated whether this will be by increasing the number, the capacity of each, or the output, Ed Miliband is approaching the task with an almost maniacal zeal at the moment.

It won’t be long before the reality of these plans starts to bite. There’s no way with current planning rules in place that they can achieve these targets, so they have decided to sweep away huge chunks of legislation that are ‘slowing down planning’. What this means, is that residents will have little or no say in where these infrastructure projects are built.

When the government realises that they are behind with their plans (which won’t take long – they only get five years in office and the clock is ticking…), they will probably look to revisit recent planning applications to see which, with fewer rules in place, might have been given the go ahead. At which point the spotlight will be back on Northwich.

So, whilst campaigners may be celebrating this as a local victory right now, don’t be at all surprised if this decision gets overruled in the near future. And whilst our local M.P. has been very quiet on this project at the moment, once we are told we are having it, be prepared to be told that it’s part of an ambitious plan to lower our energy bills and generate clean green energy and a success for Labour.

Never mind your objections, you’re having it whether you like it or not.

The post Want it or not, you’re having it. appeared first on Emma Guy Reform.

I bet the last government are kicking themselves that they didn’t think of this earlier.

Imagine the heartache they could have avoided. Imagine the immense delays and crippling pain of all those patients forced to endure a longer than expected wait for essential surgery. The government might even have escaped the months of aggravation they received for being unable to resolve this dispute.

If only they’d thought of capitulating.

When Labour came into office, Wes Streeting said that he’d make this a priority; that he would settle this long running dispute. Whilst many of us guessed he would offer them more money, no one expected he would spray our money around on this scale. The junior doctors had been intransigently demanding a 35% rise for so long, that no one took their claims seriously. After all, if you cave in to such ridiculous demands, what next? Nurses wanting 40%? Train drivers 50%? Public Sector workers 70% and Monday’s and Friday’s off?

This wonderful pay settlement, which will no doubt be sold to the British public as a success, will cost all of us a minimum of £1 billion.  And whilst few of us would begrudge junior doctor’s a reasonable pay rise, who thought 35% was reasonable? Who now thinks 20% is fair?

What really makes this such an awful settlement, unless you are a junior doctor of course, is that this news arrives on the day that Rachel Reeves tells us they have found an unexpected ‘black hole’ in the public finances of £22 billion. 

Better make that £23 billion Rachel, and make room for a bit more to come yet.

With the unions already rubbing their hands with glee, expect public sector workers to get above inflation pay rises of 5.5% as well, all of which will fuel inflation. The unions can smell blood in the water now the government have made it clear that they are willing to throw pots of cash at public sector workers to keep them happy. 

It’s officially open season on public finances.

With this decision, they have effectively destroyed the Bank of England’s 2% inflation target. If we didn’t have any money yesterday, we most definitely don’t have any now. 

And the bit they haven’t told us; we’re expected to pay for this. Every one of us. Pensioners included.

I know they promised not to put up taxes but frankly, they have no option left but to squeeze the productive part of the economy (that’s all of us taxpayers) to fund this. The magic money tree is bare; it’s only us poor individuals who are still working that can fund this largesse.

So, congratulations Labour on sorting out one of the longest running industrial disputes in the U.K. by using money we don’t have to pay for an outrageous settlement that will leave us all poorer.

If this is what happens after three weeks in office, heaven help us after three years.

The post Labour fail their first real test appeared first on Emma Guy Reform.

On the economy, he omits the fact that Labour’s main change so far is to strengthen the role of the OBR which, far from helping control the economy, will place it in a stranglehold. Politicians, no matter which party they represent, will no longer be able to control the economy as it will now be completely outsourced to an unelected quango.

The proposed legislation to ban zero hours contracts will seriously disadvantage workers in Mid Cheshire who need flexibility. We already have strong legal protection to stop employers behaving irresponsibly, so this new legislation will simply restrict jobs and remove employment opportunities.

On the campaign trail all candidates advocated for better bus services, particularly for Winsford and Middlewich, so the idea of an integrated local system is good news. Taking them into public ownership, however, is unlikely to deliver the service we need at a price which is acceptable. It will be fascinating to see how this legislation works in our area.

Whilst I am delighted that breakfast clubs will be provided for all children, I am more concerned that this Government seems determined to review the national curriculum, again. Their plans seem to involve scrapping the current system which, for all its faults, delivers outcomes measurably better than those in Wales and Scotland, and instead simply level education down. Aspiring children will be left with high and dry under these circumstances.

Their plans for the NHS so far seem to amount to simply pouring even more money into a failing system. Despite the Secretary of State for Health stating publicly that the NHS is broken, I see no coherent plan yet for change. Promising to slash waiting lists is fine, but remember, they can only do this by utilising the currently unused capacity in the private sector. When Reform U.K. proposed this, we were accused of trying to privatise the NHS. Now Labour is doing it I’m waiting for a similar outcry, though I suspect I might be waiting some time.

Finally, their proposed legislation in the housing market will be the final nail in the coffin for many landlords, who will simply sell up. Seemingly carrying on a disastrous policy that the Conservatives were thinking of implementing, far from improving the market for renting, this will further squeeze the availability of rental property and drive up rents. Whilst we wait for the promised 1.5 million new homes, more and more families will struggle to find affordable housing anywhere in Mid Cheshire.

Of course, delivering all of their legislative agenda will require billions of pounds of our money. So far, despite having complete visibility of the state of public finances before entering office, they appear to be trotting out the ‘we didn’t realise how bad it was’ line before then floating the suggestion that the rich can pay for all of this. 

If this is the case, I have bad news for all of you; the rich are every one of us, and not a single person will be better off if they implement their ‘ambitious plan that will improve our economy’.

The post The King’s speech does little for Mid Cheshire appeared first on Emma Guy Reform.

Those making the claims don’t appear to need any proof. Apparently, it is enough these days to say someone is racist for it to be true. Despite there being laws against this, because people want to believe it then it seems that it’s perfectly reasonable to call all Reform U.K. candidates and supporters racist.

This is fascinating.

Leaving aside the small issue of proof, none of which exists, there is another more pressing issue.

Since when did it become racist to want to uphold the law of the land?

We have had an Immigration Act on the statute books in this country since 1905. This 1905 Aliens Act was specifically designed to restrict immigration into Britain. Oddly, no one called it racist back then.

Since then we have had many iterations of the law, with it being regularly updated throughout the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. Finally, the Immigration Act 1971 gave clarity to who was allowed residency in the U.K., confirming the position for anyone born in parts of the Commonwealth.

The Act meant that net migration to the U.K. was controlled and typically 40-50,000 people a year were allowed to settle here.

Membership of the EU and the expansion to include Eastern European countries meant an explosion of legal migration from 2004 onwards and the incumbent Labour Government struggled to control this, looking instead for electronic help through things such as iris recognition, heartbeat sensors, backscatter X-ray and gamma-ray scanners to spot hidden illegal entrants.

Remember, this was a Labour government at the time and no one called them racist for trying to stop illegal migration.

We have since 2000, had an agreement with France to try and prevent illegal migration, and the U.K. even set up offshore processing centres in Sangatte, meaning we could offer British passport checks and border and customs controls in France.

Once again, no one thought this racist.

In fact, the 2002 government white paper on immigration said “Migration is an inevitable reality of the modern world and it brings significant benefits. But to ensure that we sustain the positive contribution of migration to our social well-being and economic prosperity, we need to manage it properly and build firmer foundations on which integration with diversity can be achieved”, and;

“The Government will initiate an open and constructive debate about citizenship, civic identity and shared values”.

No one said it was racist in 2002 for the Labour government to suggest these things. To suggest that we might have an open debate about citizenship, civic identity and shared values.

It wasn’t racist then and it isn’t racist now.

Fast forward to 2024 and we are seeing record immigration into the U.K. In 2023 we allowed an additional 685,000 people net, to settle in this country. That was on top of the 765,00 we allowed in 2022. That’s over 1.4 million people settling in the U.K. legally. Add to that a further 75,000 illegal migrants who came across the Channel in small boats and we have an increase in population the size of Manchester in just two years.

But today, just pointing this out is, apparently, racist. When Labour were in power it was considered perfectly acceptable to discuss these things, but not now.

The Illegal Migration Act 2023 changed the law so that those who arrive in the UK illegally are not able to stay here and will instead be detained and then promptly removed, either to their home country or a safe third country. This is the law of the land. It was pushed through Parliament by the Conservative Party, against the voting wishes of the majority of Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs. Those passing the law weren’t called racist.

Reform U.K.’s position on immigration is clear. The party have stated that we need smart migration, not mass migration. We need to freeze non-essential immigration, stop the small boats, provide secure detention for all illegal migrants and immediately deport any foreign criminals.

Most of this is already covered within existing legislation. It was agreed by Parliament and is U.K. law. When it was passed, no one said it was racist. No one said that we were not allowed to talk about it. No one thought it acceptable to denounce the politicians who voted this in.

To now try and pin a racism label on Reform U.K. for simply wishing to uphold the existing law of the land is deeply irresponsible. Moreover, it is pernicious and dangerous. It imperils the wellbeing of every candidate who is campaigning for a better, safer Britain. It breeds divisive resentment and seeks to split the country apart for no good reason.

Remember, this is the law of the land. Whether you agree with it or not, this was passed into law and has over decades been amended many times by Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians. 

If they weren’t racist then, they’re not racist now. Neither is Reform U.K. for simply trying to do what others have failed to do; enforce the law.

So, either all politicians are racist or none of us are. You decide.

The post Is it racist to want to enforce the law of the land? appeared first on Emma Guy Reform.

The big problem is that if people are ill informed and gullible enough, then they can easily be convinced that what they are hearing is not a lie, it’s the truth, and that they should spread the word to let everyone else know. 

It doesn’t matter to them that the truth is something different. They are so consumed in their own little bubble that even if they are shown their belief to be false, cognitive dissonance kicks in. And at that stage, they will literally swear black is white rather than accept they have made an error. 

This current election campaign has thrown up several examples of this, but none so stupid at the lie that if we leave the European Convention to Human Rights (ECHR) we won’t have any human rights in this country, which is apparently gaining traction on social media. 

That I should even need to write this is disturbing, as it highlights just how unhinged people can become when social media algorithms feed them a constant reinforcing narrative. 

To clarify, we already have a Human Rights Act in this country which was enacted in 1998 and which guarantees our rights in a huge number of areas. These include: 

The right to life

The prohibition of torture and inhuman treatment

The right to liberty and freedom

Protection against slavery and forced labour

The right to a fair trial and no punishment without law

Respect for privacy and family life and the right to marry

Freedom of thought, religion and belief

Free speech and peaceful protest

No discrimination

Protection of property

The right to an education

The right to free elections

What people seem to miss is that before this piece of legislation was introduced we already had human rights; in fact we’d had them since the 1689 Bill of Rights, so we did not need another Act to confirm our rights. We weren’t suddenly gifted human rights in 1998 and when the Act is repealed, we won’t suddenly lose them either.

The problem that Reform U.K. has with the current U.K. Human Rights Act is not to do with the rights enshrined in this Act, these are, after all, basic rights that we enjoy and frankly, sometimes, take for granted. The problem is to do with how they are currently being ruled on and applied by the ECHR.

The current Act makes it clear that any judgement made using this Act must incorporate any “…judgment, decision, declaration or advisory opinion of the European Court of Human Rights”. In other words, our Act is subjugated to the European Court of Human Rights. In short, the ECHR is enshrined into U.K. law and it doesn’t need to be. Even the Lords were debating this in 2022 as there was already a clear understanding that this needed to be changed.

When the Act was first introduced, there were very few instances where the ECHR and British law clashed, but over the past 25 years there has been a clear divergence and now, we find ourselves at odds with them in several areas. 

And it’s not only Britain. As neatly summed up by the House of Commons Library “In April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that the Swiss Government’s climate policies violated human rights. The judgment said that the right to a private and family life meant that states are obliged to protect their citizens from the “serious adverse effects” of climate change”.

That the ECHR felt able to dictate to an elected government sent a shockwave through the political system. The Swiss response; they’ve decided to ignore the ruling. Their view is that as a democratic country they don’t need to be told what to do by an outside court.

Did the world come to an end when they did this? Did the skies fall? No. Nothing changed. Apart from the fact that the Swiss people were supported by their democratically elected government against a handful of environmental protesters who felt that ‘lawfare’ was their best option. 

In the U.K. we have an existing courts system of magistrates, crown, appeal, and supreme courts to decide on our law. They should be sufficient to ensure that the law is applied fairly in this country. However, when claimants have exhausted our legal system and are still being told no, they currently have the right to take their case to the ECHR.

Unfortunately, as we have seen, the ECHR through their recent decisions, have led some to question whether they are making the right decisions. Their rulings have become more and more detached from the original aim of the legislation they are ruling on. 

Instead of simply ruling on the application of the law as set down by Parliament, they have shifted to a position where they are interpreting law; in other words, changing the law to what they think it should say rather than what it does say, without any reference back to the Parliament who made the law in the first place.

The end result is a handful of unelected individuals, sitting in a court that is not based in this country have assumed the right to make new laws for us, without oversight, nor the chance to debate and decide whether these laws are correct.

The current U.K. system of government was deliberately designed to prevent this from happening. Parliament debate and agree laws, the justice system applies those laws. They should not be open to interpretation, and certainly not to create precedents that prevent the country from carrying on its lawful business.

The Rwanda flights brought into sharp relief exactly how far this system has moved away from its original intent. Despite the fact that no one other than the government thinks these are a good idea, the courts prevented them from fulfilling an essential part of any government responsibility, that of keeping its borders secure.

Which brings us back to the original lie.

As a sovereign nation, we have a long tradition of giving our citizens rights and protections that are so well regarded internationally, that much of the world now has the same or similar rights.

We set the benchmark for human rights and have fought wars to protect them, not only in this county, but across the world. We helped create the ECHR based on the rights that we already enjoyed back in 1950. To suggest that suddenly we are going to remove them all because we leave the ECHR is not only a lie but betrays an ignorance beyond comprehension.

To be clear, the Reform U.K. Contract with You states clearly that once we leave the ECHR we will introduce a British Bill of Rights. A bill that will codify the rights we all correctly enjoy and ensure we can continue to enjoy them without interference from unelected foreign courts.

So, if anyone tells you that Reform U.K. policies are dangerous because we will lose our human rights, feel free to enlighten them. It’s not the case, has never been the case, and will never be the case. A vote for Reform U.K. is a vote to restore the sovereignty of the country and to reaffirm the rights of every citizen in the land.

The post In a campaign full of lies, this one is possibly the most ridiculous appeared first on Emma Guy Reform.

‘We want change’ they shout. ‘Time to get the Tories out’ they cry.

Whilst there may be general agreement that the Tories have done a spectacularly bad job over the past five years, and most people are eager for something to change, there has been little in the way of hard policy from any of the other political parties. 

This is a real problem.

All the candidates are shouting for change, using it as a rallying cry and hoping to get people to march behind them, but there’s one big elephant in the room.

Change to what?

It’s great that so many people want change, but what change do you want? And how can you be sure, even if you do know what changes you want, that those changes are what the country needs?

Wishing rid of the conservative government is a change that a lot of people desire, but what do they think any incoming government will do to improve their lives? 

We’ve seen very little detail over the past couple of years, just a set of vague ideals and promises from Kier Starmer and the shadow cabinet. Even now there is a lack of willingness by him and his party to commit to doing anything if they are elected. There’s a vacuum of policy ideas from the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, still reeling from their leaders’ involvement in the Post Office scandal, seem bereft of original ideas.

None of them actually offer change. They all appear to be offering a tinkering around the edges with a guarantee of continuity, slightly left of centre socialism. 

Reform UK are different. We’ve had fully costed proposals available for people to read for the past three months. Policies that get to the heart of the problems facing the U.K. today. Policies that are radical in some respects, but necessary to ensure that our society and way of life can continue.

Because one thing is crystal clear to anyone who stops to think about it for a moment. If we carry on along the path we currently occupy, things will only get worse.

We need to find a new path, a new trajectory for Britain. 

Remember, Einstein famously said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again, yet expecting a different outcome. We’ve elected the main parties in and out of office for the past quarter of a century and they’ve brought us to this point. To do so again would simply be insanity.

Something needs to change, and that something is Reform UK.

The post Change they all cry; but to what? appeared first on Emma Guy Reform.