{"id":564135,"date":"2025-11-11T18:51:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T18:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/564135\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T18:51:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T18:51:12","slug":"labours-complacency-is-costing-britain-its-jobs-and-its-confidence-w-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/564135\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour’s complacency is costing Britain its jobs and its confidence, w | Politics | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, I met some of the UK’s biggest retailers to hear directly from the businesses that keep Britain’s high streets alive. Their message was clear: the last Budget drove up costs, choked investment and put jobs at risk.<\/p>\n

Those warnings have now been borne out by the latest labour market statistics. Unemployment has risen to 5% \u2013 the highest level since the pandemic. Behind that number are families who’ve lost the security of a pay packet, young people shut out of opportunity, and employers forced to cut back.<\/p>\n

It is a sobering reminder that when government gets the fundamentals wrong, it is ordinary working people who pay the price.<\/p>\n

After almost 18 months in office, Labour’s complacency is costing Britain its jobs and its confidence.<\/p>\n

The number of people on company payrolls has fallen by 180,000 over the past year.<\/p>\n

Wage growth is slowing. Vacancies have stalled. And yet the Government has no credible plan to turn things around.<\/p>\n

Instead of backing enterprise, Labour has piled on higher taxes and more red tape.<\/p>\n

Before the election, Rachel Reeves<\/a> said she’d run the most “pro-business Treasury”.<\/p>\n

She promised not to raise National Insurance. But within months, she broke that promise \u2013 hitting employers with a \u00a325billion jobs tax, new regulations, and now the threat of more to come in the Budget.<\/p>\n

Be in no doubt, these unemployment figures are a direct consequence of Labour\u2019s economically illiterate decision to increase employers’ National Insurance.<\/p>\n

Raising the cost of hiring has two obvious results: inflation and higher unemployment \u2013 especially in sectors such as hospitality, leisure and retail, where every pound matters. When you tax jobs, you destroy them.<\/p>\n

And that is exactly what we are seeing today.<\/p>\n

Whenever I meet retailers or those in leisure and hospitality, they all tell me the same thing: that rising employment costs and mounting uncertainty are forcing them to pause hiring and investment.<\/p>\n

These are the businesses that keep our communities thriving and our high streets open. They don\u2019t ask for favours \u2013 they ask for a fair chance to grow, to invest, and to offer opportunity to others.<\/p>\n

Instead, Labour has chosen to tax work, pile on bureaucracy, and sap business confidence to record lows.<\/p>\n

That approach isn’t pro-worker \u2013 it’s anti-job. When business costs rise, it’s workers who suffer through lost hours, lost opportunities and, ultimately, lost jobs.<\/p>\n

The Conservative approach is different: we back the job creators and reward work.<\/p>\n

Unemployment at a post-pandemic high isn’t inevitable \u2013 it’s the result of bad decisions.<\/p>\n

Britain has immense potential, powered by hard-working people and world-class businesses. The next Conservative government will restore confidence, get Britain working again, and put opportunity back at the heart of our economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Tuesday, I met some of the UK’s biggest retailers to hear directly from the businesses that keep…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,179567,3374,393,4884,179565,528,168529,2064,39005,1144,712,16,179566,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-564135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-business-confidence-decline","12":"tag-employment","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-labour-complacency","16":"tag-labour-party","17":"tag-mel-stride-mp","18":"tag-national-insurance","19":"tag-national-insurance-increase","20":"tag-northern-ireland","21":"tag-scotland","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-unemployment-rise","24":"tag-united-kingdom","25":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115532574572891553","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}