Rachel Reeves fights for Labor credibility after Jeremy Corbyn

The entire nation can breathe a sigh of relief that the Labor Party is giving a funeral pyre to Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-capitalist, Marxist economic agenda that would have left us all poor and bankrupted the country.

In former Bank of England economist Rachel Reeves, the party has acquired a more responsible shadow chancellor who vows to spend taxpayers’ money wisely and deal with a completely unequal system of trading rates on the battered High Street. And wants to restore the fortunes of the shopping center.

Reeves is in the fortunate position to push for an open door on improving business rates, which is one reason this paper has campaigned tirelessly.

She wants to see the bulk of the £31 billion raised through business rates displaced by an online sales tax of 12 percent in 2023, largely to be paid for by Silicon Valley giants and other digital enterprises.

What Labor proposes is sure to sound moderate compared to the crazy radical interventions of its predecessors, which would have piled up taxes on middle-income citizens and enterprises until the pips squeak.

In one of Labor’s more compelling views as the country navigates a gas and fuel crisis, Reeves pledges to spend £28 billion to create ‘good jobs’ in green industries, from electric vehicles to a thriving hydrogen industry Is. Many such initiatives are underway and can certainly gain strength if the goal of a carbon neutral UK is to be achieved.

However, given the current energy chaos, as the UK goes into winter, investment in more conventional energy sources may be welcome to help provide the UK with the security of supply on the country’s journey to a greener future Can you

Reeves proposes to pay for the Green Revolution by raising the level of government borrowing for investment. Basically, she wants to nurture a new money tree. Perhaps, he should consult the March budget documents, which showed a £234 billion borrowing in the current fiscal year and the national debt at 100 per cent of national output. The overall tone may be different but that doesn’t mean the country is looking to a Labor Party on which ordinary hardworking Britons can count on for our future prosperity.

In choosing to reform trade rates as the central plank of policy, what Reeves has done is a soft underbelly on reform. What Labor fails to acknowledge is that in the pandemic, Chancellor Rishi Sunak provided a £10 billion business rate holiday for hard-hit retail, leisure and hospitality firms.

In his March budget, Sunak provided a further £6 billion to support businesses by the end of this year. Furthermore, a cursory visit to HM Treasury’s website reveals a 29-page interim report on improving trade rates, where the views put forward are similar to those of Reeves’ much-anticipated plan.

Even more worrying, Reeves and his colleagues are still fueling the myth that somehow the wealthier members of society are taxed less and are able to take advantage of the system of tax relief, which Used to encourage all citizens to save, families to the detriment of common labor.

It fails to recognize that the wealthiest 1 per cent in the UK already pay 25 per cent of income tax and the top 50 per cent of earners are responsible for paying 90 per cent of taxes.

The idea that the rich are indulging in some big tax scam and there is a huge pot of money that can be used for public services is poppy.

What Labor seems to have forgotten while attacking private landlords is that many are ordinary middle-income citizens.

The tax reliefs that Reeves aims for a radical reform are largely pensions and encourage savings through entrepreneurship through ISAs and start-up companies. Saving creates resources for investment which drives economic growth.

The rhetoric is imaginative and liberal is the language of war on the rich. But in the end Reeves’ policy solutions aren’t much different from those of his predecessors. The old suffocating mantra of Soak, Spend and Borrow is alive as ever.