Government has given up trying to ‘live within its means’, claims Badenoch

Kemi Badenoch has accused the Labour Government of having given up on trying to “live within its means”, as she criticised Rachel Reeves’s speech setting the stage for tax rises as “one long waffle bomb”.

Giving her own speech in central London on Tuesday, the Tory leader said: “The Chancellor’s speech was one long waffle bomb, a laundry list of excuses.

“She blamed everybody else for her own choices, her own decisions, her own failures.”

Mrs Badenoch said Ms Reeves had delivered “a masterclass in managed decline” that left business leaders and investors “confused” because “Labour doesn’t have a plan to get Britain working”.

She accused Sir Keir Starmer’s Government of no longer attempting to “live within its means”, saying to do so “is not austerity, it is respect for taxpayers”.

She added: “They talk about working people while making life harder and harder for people who actually work, and worst of all, they pretend that what they’re doing is all necessary.

“They pretend that they don’t have a choice. The reality is that they have given up trying to change anything.

“They have given up trying to get the Government to live within its means, and they have given up on not raising tax.

“That’s what Rachel Reeves was telling us this morning, and a Government that refuses to live within its means, while telling everyone else to tighten their belts, isn’t being fair, that Government is being hypocritical.

“Getting the Government to live within its means is not austerity, it is respect. It is respect for taxpayers.”

Ms Reeves earlier declined to recommit to Labour’s manifesto commitments not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT, saying “we will all have to contribute”.

She blamed global problems including the tariff war triggered by US President Donald Trump and domestic issues including the budget watchdog’s expected downgrade of economic productivity for the “hard choices” she will make.

The Office for Budget Responsibility is expected to cut its previous productivity forecasts, covering the years the Tories were in power.

But Mrs Badenoch blamed the Covid crisis, telling Sky News: “Productivity dropped because of the pandemic. The Conservatives did not create the pandemic…

“The person in Government now needs to take responsibility.”

Mrs Badenoch also refuted Labour accusations that the Conservatives’ “botched” Brexit agreement had harmed the economy.

“It is not true that the Brexit deal has reduced productivity,” she told ITV.

“A lot of the things which I’ve seen, like the report about a 4% shrinking in the economy, they turned out not to be true. They were forecasts. They were projections. That is why Rachel Reeves blaming Brexit is such a ridiculous thing.”

The Tory leader again declined to commit to reversing any income tax rises Labour may impose if the Tories came back into government.

“Things could actually get worse and worse,” she told LBC Radio.

“We do have to wait and see where the economy is going before we know how we will fix it.”

Mrs Badenoch said in her speech that graduate jobs were down by a third since Labour took office, adding that is “not AI’s fault”.

“You can draw a direct line between what Rachel Reeves did in the budget last year and the dire prospects” faced by many graduates, she said.

She criticised “insane rates of marginal tax” and said “Britain has stopped working because for too many it has stopped making sense to work”.

Mrs Badenoch also claimed Labour had “given up” trying to curb the disability benefits bill, after a review of personal independent payments, which started last week, was tasked with operating within the Office for Budget Responsibility’s existing projections for welfare spending instead of seeking savings.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “It’s astonishing that Kemi Badenoch had the gall to gloss over the Tories’ 14-year record of failure. It’s utterly delusional and ignores the reality of the mess they left behind.

“The Conservatives oversaw a £114 billion hike to the benefits bill, with the shadow chancellor personally overseeing £33 billion of that. Kemi Badenoch is treating the public with contempt. The Tories are now pledging billions in unfunded commitments – proving they have zero economic credibility and simply can’t be trusted.

“Labour is clear that people who can work should work. This Labour Government is getting people back into the workplace and out of the doom loop of joblessness that spiralled out of control under the Conservatives. As we renew Britain, that’s the only way we’ll create a fairer future where everyone has the chance to get on in life and succeed.”