“Today’s cut will be welcome news for millions of homeowners and shows that Labour inherited a stronger economy which was on the right track,” crowed Shadow Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, attacking Reeves for agreeing to new public sector pay rises.
“In government, we took difficult decisions that cut inflation from 11.1 per cent to the Bank’s target 2.0 per cent paving the way for lower rates.”
The Tories tried to make an improving economy a vote winner in the U.K.’s snap July election, after inflation fell back down to the Bank of England’s 2 percent target.
But voters still feeling the pinch in their wallets severely punished the party at the polls after 14 years in power.
Good or bad inheritance
Now it is in government, Reeves’ main attack line is that the former government massively overspent. She’s swiped at a failure to allocate sufficient resources to meet investment commitments and demands on public services.
Reeves claims the Conservatives blew the asylum budget by £6.5 billion, that bailing out rail services cost £1.6 billion, and blamed the Tories’ inability to do a pay deal with striking public sector workers for a £9.4 billion pay rise she brokered — a sum that made up almost half of the alleged overspend.
