DAILY MAIL COMMENT: As homeowners face mortgage repayment misery, reckless Labour must share the blame for interest rates hike
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Just in time for Christmas, hard-pressed homeowners have been hit with a painful increase in interest rates and the promise of more to come.
Figures suggest the base rate rise to 4 per cent will see average tracker mortgage repayments go up by £31 per month, while borrowers on variable deals face a hike of around £14. Already, the experts are warning of far worse to come.
The Bank of England’s unwelcome (and very unseasonal) present comes, of course, in response to inflation driven upwards principally by the war on Iran and the resulting global fuel crisis. But the volatile geopolitical climate isn’t entirely responsible for spiralling prices - the Government’s short-sighted socialist policies deserve a large portion of the blame.
Within months of Sir Keir Starmer coming to power in 2024, the Office for Budget Responsibility warned that Labour’s profligacy would result in higher inflation in the short term. Early signs of trouble included overly generous pay deals for protesting doctors and train drivers.
Yet if excessive public spending has been a significant contributory factor to the problem, punitive anti-business measures - including sharp increases to employers’ National Insurance contributions and the youth minimum wage - have been even more detrimental. In many cases, prices have been pushed upwards due to firms having no realistic option other than passing on the extra costs to consumers.
Within months of Sir Keir Starmer coming to power in 2024, the Office for Budget Responsibility warned that Labour’s profligacy would result in higher inflation in the short term
Nor should we forget the key role played by Labour’s Net Zero crusade in fuelling inflation. Even regulators at Ofgem admitted last year that wind farms are responsible for higher energy bills.
It hardly needs spelling out that the inflation situation is unlikely to improve for as long as Donald Trump persists with his ill-judged assault on the Tehran regime. But nor is there much prospect of it getting better while Andy Burnham’s Labour continues steering Britain on an utterly reckless economic course.
Soft-justice scandal
Is there any good reason why gangster Carl ‘The Dread’ Robinson, who has a string of criminal convictions and was most recently found with a stash of knives, remains at liberty? Perhaps the Labour Party has an answer.
Under rules introduced earlier this year to reduce prison overcrowding, Robinson was let off with a suspended sentence because he was only eligible for a custodial jail term of 12 months or less. This is just the latest example of the Government’s twisted approach to the crisis in the penal system.
Little more than a month after it came into effect, it is obvious that the new early-release programme - which is expected to free 50,000 convicts per year - is proving to be a disaster. The full horror is only likely to emerge when felons supposed to be serving 12 years start walking free.
Anyone with a modicum of common sense could have seen this coming. Throwing open jail doors early for offenders - or failing to even lock them up in the first place - is no answer. As Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy puts it: ‘Prison works.’
By royal example
Full credit to the King for carrying off a highly challenging Commonwealth tour with grace and aplomb.
Although the visit was overshadowed by the Prime Minister’s crass, people-pleasing remarks about a formal apology for slavery, Charles correctly highlighted the Royal Navy’s role in bringing the slave trade to an end. With characteristic modesty, he now says he is ‘fully open’ to being replaced as head of state in Caribbean countries if that’s what their citizens choose.
It may not have occurred to Mr Burnham, but there is much he could learn from the King. Not least when it comes to diplomacy and humility.
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