{"id":60481,"date":"2025-04-29T14:56:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T14:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/60481\/"},"modified":"2025-04-29T14:56:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T14:56:08","slug":"famous-uk-department-store-closes-last-shop-and-takes-brutal-dig-at-rachel-reeves-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/60481\/","title":{"rendered":"Famous UK department store closes last shop and takes brutal dig at Rachel Reeves | UK | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last branch of a 144-year-old department store that was once a staple of British high streets is preparing to close its doors \u2013 with a brutal dig at Chancellor Rachel Reeves<\/a>. Beales fell into administration in January 2020 and closed 22 of its 23 UK branches in the same year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Its one remaining store in the seaside town of Poole, Dorset<\/a>, kept the once-iconic brand chugging along \u2013 until Labour\u2019s tax hikes<\/a> put the famous retailer in an untenable position. Chief executive Tony Brown confirmed that the branch, in Poole\u2019s Dolphin Shopping Centre, would close at the end of May \u2013 and launched a tongue-in-cheek \u201cRachel Reeves closing-down sale\u201d to mark the occasion.<\/p>\n

The retailer\u2019s Facebook<\/a> page said the sale would include discounts of up to 80% and cheekily added: \u201cThanks for the help, Chancellor.\u201d Mr Brown has also had posters of the Chancellor printed out, which he said was a \u201cpoke in the ribs\u201d for the Government on behalf of the whole industry.<\/p>\n

Ms Reeves announced an increase in employers’ National Insurance<\/a> from 13.8% to 15% in her autumn Budget, which was widely criticised by industry figures when it came into effect in April. The threshold for paying the contributions was also lowered from \u00a39,100 to \u00a35,000.<\/p>\n

A 6.7% increase in the National Minimum Wage<\/a> also hit firms. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) warned the increase could cost businesses an extra \u00a35billion over the coming year.<\/p>\n

Beales will now become one of over 203,000 UK businesses to have closed their doors since Labour took office, a staggering statistic released last month.<\/p>\n

Mr Brown said the tax changes<\/a> had made the business \u201cunviable\u201d and warned that if the Chancellor continues her \u201cfiscal strategy”, many more firms would be forced to close \u2013 leaving British high streets packed with “cafes and vape shops”.<\/p>\n

“Ever since the punitive business taxes<\/a> heaped on by the Chancellor, the two NI increases and the National Minimum wage increase and the reduction of the rates relief to 40% adding significantly to our costs, these punitive taxes have had the effect that the business has become unviable,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis, coupled with the risks and uncertainty of further tax increases in the coming years, have left us no other option.”<\/p>\n

Mr Brown also accused Labour of being \u201cmanipulative\u201d and carefully wording its manifesto to enable it to increase taxes on working people.<\/p>\n

\u201cI consider myself a working person,<\/a> people who run businesses are working people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last branch of a 144-year-old department store that was once a staple of British high streets is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[51,1700,619,363,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-60481","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-rachel-reeves","11":"tag-retail","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114421837616254519","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60481","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=60481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}