Andy Burnham’s Labour just descended into madness – how this ends is terrifying

Rachel Reeves was worse. She hit us for £40billion in her first Budget and £26billion in her second, but don’t be fooled. If Chancellor John Healey gets to deliver another Budget, there will be more tax raids. The Labour Party demands them. Healey may have lifted the UK tax burden to its highest level on record, but here’s the really scary bit. He’s taking a beating from the left because he didn’t go far enough. They want more tax, more spending, more borrowing, more benefits, with no apparent end. Labour will spend £500billion more than the Tories planned this Parliament. The national debt is equivalent to £100,000 per household. Savers will soon pay tax of up to 49% on their deposits. But it’s still not enough.

Lefties were up in arms over Healey’s decision to slap a windfall tax on the banks. Not because he did it, but because he didn’t go in hard enough. The TUC suggested £60billion over four years. A headline at left-wing newspaper The Guardian gleefully demanded: “Hit the banks – and hit them hard.” Yet our banks are already among the most heavily taxed in the world, contributing a record £47.8billion to the Treasury last year.

Pile on yet more taxes and we risk driving banking jobs, capital and investment to New York, Dublin and Singapore. But Labour seems happy to kill the golden goose. Even though we don’t have many left. Thankfully, Healey kept his head with a time-limited £1.5billion raid, but he’ll be under pressure to hit them much harder when it expires on March 31, 2028.

The left is giving Burnham and Healey the benefit of the doubt, but only because it believes the Budget is a prelude to a snap election. They’re dreaming of Burnham’s 10-year plan, a spending review and an election fought on a new manifesto that could pave the way for hikes to income tax, national insurance and VAT, all ruled out in the current one.

They ignore the fact that income tax is already rising relentlessly through the freeze on thresholds, which thanks to Reeves will continue until 2031. That still isn’t enough. If Labour won that election, there would be nothing holding it back.

Government spending is currently around 44% of GDP. For years, the left has looked enviously at France, where the figure is closer to 57%. That’s where they want us to be. They ignore the fact that France is plunging into the abyss because, no matter how much the government spends, it will never be enough. And it will never be enough for Labour either.

Even if Healey knew how to balance the books, he wouldn’t be allowed to, because he has to keep placating his backbenchers, who rebel at the first hint of a spending cut. Keir Starmer tried cutting £5billion off the £160billion bill for working-age welfare. That was too much for Labour. Yet in truth, it was nowhere near enough.

And then we have think tanks such as the Resolution Foundation, whose former director Torsten Bell helped shape the Budget. Bell previously called for 20 different taxes to be hiked, hitting pensioners, inheritances, savings, ISAs and homes.

Labour is working its way down his list. And it still won’t be enough. As the population ages and the welfare bill rockets, Britain faces fiscal ruin unless we get a grip. Rather than face up to reality, the left is in total denial.

Now imagine a Burnham government with a fresh mandate and Healey trying to placate his party. London would burn like Paris before you could say fiscal responsibility.

Bond markets have their hands full with French debt right now. But if they looked more closely at the deranged thinking on the British left, gilt yields would rocket and it would be game over. And even then, the left wouldn’t learn. Because no matter how much we tax and spend, it will never, ever, be enough.