Cap-trap
RACHEL Reeves is already asking Britain’s strivers to swallow income tax rises to dig herself out of the giant financial hole her bad decisions have created.
Yet somehow the Chancellor is preparing to make them cough up even more for families on benefits, too.
Labour is so ideologically wedded to state intervention that Reeves now insists the “only way” to tackle child poverty is by scrapping the two-child benefit cap.
What happened to her pre-General Election vow that such a measure was “unaffordable”?
Apparently it no longer matters that it could cost £3.5billion at a time when she claims there is so little cash in Treasury coffers that everyone must “contribute” more tax.
Or that it is morally unfair to force responsible working parents who cannot afford a third child to fund mums on benefits having three, four or even five kids.
Any confident Government with a massive majority should be able to drive through proper reform to curb the welfare bill, along with spending cuts, to balance the books.
But this one, for all its tough talk about making difficult choices, is ultimately always ready to cave in to its left-wing MPs.
Scrapping the cap now, while breaking manifesto promises by hiking income tax, is a sure-fire way of shedding even more voters.
Same old Beeb
IF the resignation of Director-General Tim Davie was supposed to signal a fresh start, licence-fee payers demanding an impartial BBC will be sorely disappointed.
The way the Corporation has reacted to this crisis — a bunker mentality, absurd claims of a right-wing coup and a dumbly defiant refusal to accept overwhelming evidence of institutional bias — shows it’s going to take more than just a new chief at the helm.
Instead, what’s required is a wiping out of the liberal groupthink which has long warped editorial decisions on immigration, the climate, trans rights and welfarism.
Instead of sticking heads in the sand, it badly needs a return to putting the needs and concerns of ordinary viewers first.
The BBC must change where it recruits from and who, and stop indulging the views of its younger, relentlessly left-leaning staff.
A proper complaints system that works for everyday people — not one that’s set up to appease activist groups — is vital.
Despite what Mr Davie seems to think, the BBC cannot simply say “some mistakes were made” and then go back to business as usual.
Otherwise its days really will be numbered.
