There are plenty of memes flying around at the moment telling us that if we earn it, spend it, save it, invest it, drive it, eat it or eventually fall off our perch, somebody somewhere in government will find a way of taxing it.
They are funny because, like most decent satire, there is enough truth buried underneath the exaggeration to make people wince.
But I don't particularly want to base an argument against this Labour Government on memes.
Why bother?
The official figures are quite capable of doing the job themselves.
The more I have looked into Labour's record, the less need there is for wild claims, conspiracy theories or Facebook folklore.
There is a perfectly serious case to answer about taxation, borrowing, spending, immigration, pensions, businesses, elections and the simple matter of whether the British public are getting anything remotely resembling value for the enormous sums of money being taken from them.
So, in the finest tradition of the Yellow Pages — for younger readers, ask your grandparents — here is my alphabetical trawl through Labour's Great British Squeeze.
Put the kettle on.
This may take a while.
A IS FOR AGRICULTURE
Remember the row over inheritance tax and farms?
Labour originally proposed restricting full Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief to the first £1 million of qualifying assets.
Farmers pointed out that a farm can be worth a considerable amount on paper without its owner sitting in the kitchen bathing in champagne and £50 notes.
Cue protests.
Cue outrage.
Cue ministers explaining that everybody else had apparently misunderstood the policy.
And eventually?
Cue the retreat.
From April 2026 the full relief threshold was increased to £2.5 million per person, potentially £5 million between spouses or civil partners, before taking other relevant allowances into consideration.
That is a significant improvement on what Labour originally proposed.
But I refuse to join in the modern Westminster habit of congratulating governments for partially putting out fires they started themselves.
It's rather like somebody driving through your garden wall, reversing out and then expecting applause because they didn't demolish the conservatory as well.
A IS ALSO FOR ASYLUM
Labour has promised action on the Channel.
We have heard about smashing the gangs.
We have heard about enforcement.
We have heard about international cooperation.
We have heard quite a lot, actually.
Unfortunately the boats have continued arriving while we have been listening.
In the week ending 9 August 2026 alone the Home Office recorded 716 arrivals in ten boats.
Returns have increased, and it would be dishonest not to acknowledge that.
But the uncomfortable question remains:
Does the British state actually control its border?
Because control is not measured by how many times a minister says the word control.
It is measured by results.
And when thousands of people continue making irregular crossings while removals operate on a much smaller scale, there is still rather a large elephant sitting in the Home Office reception.
Probably filling out a consultation form.
B IS FOR BORROWING
Here is a number worth contemplating over your cornflakes:
£2.9899 trillion.
That was public-sector net debt at the end of June 2026.
In old-fashioned language:
nearly three trillion pounds.
That's roughly 94.9% of GDP.
Now here is the part I find especially interesting.
We are continually told that taxes have to rise because the public finances must be repaired.
Fair enough.
So why, while government is extracting an historically enormous amount of money from the population, are we still carrying enormous debt and borrowing?
At some point taxpayers are entitled to ask:
How exactly have we managed to combine high taxation with high spending and high debt?
Normally you would hope one of those things might reduce one of the others.
Apparently Britain has developed the deluxe package.
B IS ALSO FOR BUSINESS
Labour says it wants growth.
Quite right too.
It wants businesses to expand.
Excellent.
It wants employers to create jobs.
Splendid.
And then it increased employer National Insurance from 13.8% to 15% and lowered the threshold at which employers start paying it from £9,100 to £5,000.
There is something magnificently Whitehall about telling employers:
«Please employ more people.»
and then adding:
«Incidentally, we've made employing people more expensive.»
Businesses cannot create money in a photocopier.
Higher employment costs eventually appear somewhere.
Prices.
Margins.
Pay.
Recruitment.
Investment.
Or all of the above.
Government can describe it as a tax on employers until the cows come home.
The employer still has to find the money.
---
C IS FOR CAPITAL GAINS
Labour increased the main lower Capital Gains Tax rate from 10% to 18%, and the higher rate from 20% to 24%.
Business Asset Disposal Relief has also become less generous.
We hear constantly that Britain needs entrepreneurs.
Risk takers.
Investors.
People prepared to build businesses.
Very good.
But entrepreneurship generally involves somebody risking their own money, time and security while government risks absolutely none of those things.
If the business collapses, the Treasury doesn't normally send round a chap with a sympathy card and half the losses.
But if it succeeds?
Ah.
Suddenly everyone is family.
---
C IS ALSO FOR CASH ISAs
From April 2027, Labour plans to restrict the cash element of an ISA to £12,000 for most people under 65, while retaining the overall ISA allowance.
There are economic arguments for encouraging people to invest rather than leave everything sitting in cash.
But I can't help noticing how often government lectures people about personal responsibility and then becomes remarkably interested in directing what they do once they actually behave responsibly.
Save for yourself.
But not like that.
Invest.
But preferably how we'd like you to.
Make provision for your future.
But please consult the Treasury's latest behavioural preferences first.
Sometimes I wonder whether the Treasury secretly dreams of being everybody's financial adviser.
Only one that sends you the bill afterwards.
---
D IS FOR DEBT
Debt deserves another mention because it exposes the contradiction at the centre of the whole thing.
Britain has:
high taxes;
high spending;
high borrowing;
and high debt.
It is difficult to look at that combination and conclude everything is going swimmingly.
If taxation were soaring while debt was collapsing, ministers could argue that painful medicine was repairing the books.
But taxation is rising while the state remains enormously indebted.
So the taxpayer gets today's bill.
Future taxpayers inherit tomorrow's.
It's intergenerational generosity, Westminster-style.
---
E IS FOR ELECTRIC CARS
For years government encouraged motorists to buy electric cars.
Help save the planet.
Move away from petrol and diesel.
Enjoy the tax advantages.
Very environmentally virtuous.
Then enough people bought electric cars for the Treasury to notice something alarming:
fuel-duty receipts eventually decline if people stop buying fuel.
Fear not.
From April 2028 Labour intends to introduce mileage-based Electric Vehicle Excise Duty.
The proposed rates are 3p per mile for fully electric cars and 1.5p for plug-in hybrids.
And thus we discover one of the immutable laws of British government:
If Whitehall encourages you to do something successfully enough, the Treasury will eventually find a way of taxing it.
---
F IS FOR FISCAL DRAG
This is one of Westminster's cleverer tricks.
Don't increase the headline income-tax rate.
Simply freeze the thresholds.
Allow wages to rise with inflation.
Gradually pull more people into taxation and more taxpayers into higher bands.
Then stand at the despatch box saying:
We haven't increased the basic rate of income tax.
Technically true.
Financially rather less comforting.
Labour did not invent this.
The Conservatives started the threshold freeze.
That should be made perfectly clear.
But Labour inherited the machine and apparently decided it was much too useful to turn off.
The Office for Budget Responsibility expects frozen thresholds to raise tens of billions.
A stealth tax is still a tax even if nobody cuts a ribbon when it opens.
---
F IS ALSO FOR FRANCE
Remember "one in, one out"?
Beautifully simple slogan.
By 30 June 2026, 1,087 people had been returned from Britain to France under the arrangement.
Meanwhile 1,117 people had entered Britain legally from France through the reciprocal route.
Now, before somebody gets excited, the agreement was always reciprocal.
So the mere fact that slightly more people had come legally into Britain than had been returned does not prove some grand betrayal.
But here is the rather more serious question:
Does a returns mechanism operating in the low thousands remotely match the scale of Channel crossings?
It may be a tool.
A teaspoon is also a tool.
You wouldn't use one to empty Birmingham's canal network.
---
G IS FOR GROWTH
Growth.
Growth.
Growth.
If Labour ministers said "growth" much more often I'm half expecting it to appear on National Lottery scratchcards.
Everything is apparently being done for growth.
Tax rises bring stability, which brings growth.
Infrastructure will bring growth.
Planning reform will bring growth.
Investment brings growth.
More government schemes will bring growth.
Wonderful.
At some point, however, growth has to become something more tangible than a word printed on Treasury slides.
People need to feel it.
Businesses need to see it.
Living standards need to reflect it.
Productivity has to improve.
Investment has to follow.
Government cannot simply chant "growth" over the economy like an incantation.
The economy isn't Beetlejuice.
---
I IS FOR INHERITANCE TAX AND PENSIONS
From April 2027, most unused pension funds and death benefits are due to be brought within estates for inheritance-tax purposes.
Now let's get one thing straight.
The online claim that Labour will simply take 40% of everybody's pension when they die is nonsense.
Not every estate pays inheritance tax.
Thresholds and exemptions matter.
But the underlying policy change is absolutely real.
And there is something rather dispiriting about the sequence.
Work.
Pay tax.
Save.
Build a pension.
Make provision for yourself.
Try not to become dependent upon the state.
Then discover that the state has found another way of taking an interest in the accumulated pot.
It sometimes feels as though personal responsibility is greatly admired in Britain right up until it produces an asset.
---
L IS FOR LABOUR MARKET
UK unemployment stood at around 4.9% in March to May 2026.
That isn't economic Armageddon.
But nor should ministers become too comfortable.
Labour has increased the cost of employment while simultaneously declaring economic growth its overriding objective.
Jobs are overwhelmingly created by businesses, not government press offices.
Every additional cost placed on employers eventually feeds into decisions about whether to take another person on.
Politicians announce job creation.
Employers actually sign the payslips.
The distinction is worth remembering.
---
L IS ALSO FOR LOCAL ELECTIONS
This one should concern people whatever their politics.
Local elections were postponed in some areas in 2025 because of reorganisation.
Then the Government proposed postponing elections in 30 councils in May 2026.
Legal proceedings followed.
Legal advice followed.
And the Government reversed its position.
One claim circulating online says Labour lost a court case.
It didn't.
The decision was reversed before a final judgment.
But why embellish something that is already troubling?
The Government proposed delaying millions of people's opportunity to vote in local elections.
Then, after legal challenge and legal advice, it changed course.
Elections are not an optional administrative accessory.
They are the bit where the public get to tell politicians what they think of them.
Possibly why politicians should be exceptionally reluctant to postpone them.
---
N IS FOR NHS
Here's somewhere Labour can point to some genuine improvement.
By March 2026 around 65.3% of patients were waiting no longer than 18 weeks for elective treatment, an improvement from the position Labour inherited.
Good.
Credit where it is due.
Unfortunately the NHS constitutional standard is above 92%.
So yes, things have improved.
But perhaps hold off commissioning the brass band.
If Britain is paying historically enormous amounts of tax, taxpayers are entitled to expect services that don't merely improve from poor to somewhat less poor.
The question isn't simply:
Is it better than before?
It should also be:
Is it anywhere near good enough for what we are paying?
---
P IS FOR PENSIONS
From April 2029 Labour plans to restrict the amount of pension contribution made through salary sacrifice that receives National Insurance relief to £2,000 a year.
Again, another future measure rather than something happening today.
But I struggle with the policy logic.
Britain has an ageing population.
Governments tell people to make better private provision for retirement.
Then government gradually reduces the incentives for making private provision.
Maybe next year they'll launch a campaign:
SAVE FOR YOUR FUTURE — TERMS AND CONDITIONS SUBJECT TO WHATEVER THE TREASURY THINKS IN THREE YEARS' TIME.
Catchy.
---
P IS ALSO FOR PRIVATE SCHOOLS
Since January 2025, private school fees have been subject to 20% VAT.
Charitable business-rates relief was also removed.
People can argue endlessly about private education.
Fine.
But let's at least describe the policy accurately.
It is another extension of taxation.
Parents choosing independent education generally still pay the same taxes supporting state education while not taking a state-funded school place.
Labour's answer was to place VAT on the fees.
Supporters call that fairness.
Critics see a government spotting another area of private spending and thinking:
Ooh. Revenue.
Take your pick.
---
P IS ALSO FOR PUBLIC SPENDING
This is where my eyebrows begin trying to leave my forehead.
Britain isn't a country in which government has no money.
Government receipts run to well over a trillion pounds every year.
Government then spends even more.
And borrows the difference.
Yet almost every national problem seems eventually to produce the same answer:
More money.
NHS struggling?
More money.
Councils struggling?
More money.
Defence?
More money.
Infrastructure?
More money.
Energy?
More money.
Another government programme to explain why previous government programmes haven't worked?
Probably more money.
Eventually taxpayers are entitled to ask a fairly basic question:
WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THE MONEY YOU ALREADY HAVE?
Because there comes a point where "underfunding" cannot be the universal explanation for every badly performing public body.
Sometimes management is poor.
Sometimes productivity is poor.
Sometimes priorities are wrong.
Sometimes money is wasted.
And sometimes politicians are simply much better at spending other people's money than explaining what happened to it afterwards.
---
T IS FOR TAX
Now we arrive at the star of the show.
The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts National Accounts taxes rising from around 34.5% of GDP in 2024/25 to 38.5% by 2030/31.
A post-war record.
Labour didn't create Britain's high-tax economy from scratch.
The Conservatives made a substantial contribution to getting us here, and pretending otherwise would simply be dishonest.
But what did Labour do when it inherited an already enormous tax burden?
Did it begin dismantling it?
No.
It added more.
Employer National Insurance.
Capital Gains Tax changes.
Inheritance-tax changes.
VAT on private school fees.
Continuing fiscal drag.
Further pension and motoring taxation in the pipeline.
Labour inherited a tax mountain.
Then sent for the builders.
---
U IS FOR U-TURNS
Farm inheritance tax.
Winter Fuel Payment.
Local elections.
And various other retreats and revisions.
Governments should change policy when policies are wrong.
I'm not criticising anybody merely for admitting a mistake.
But there is a difference between being responsive and repeatedly driving into a wall before discovering reverse gear.
The pattern often seems to be:
announce;
defend;
tell critics they're wrong;
discover critics have a point;
retreat;
announce that government is listening.
Perhaps a little more listening at Stage One could save quite a lot of Stage Five.
---
V IS FOR VAT
The meme saying "if you spend it, they tax it" is obviously an exaggeration.
Not everything attracts VAT.
Most basic food is zero-rated.
Many transactions are exempt.
But memes work when people recognise something underneath them.
And people do.
Earn.
Tax.
Employ somebody.
Tax.
Buy things.
Tax.
Run a business.
Tax.
Invest.
Potential tax.
Sell an asset at a gain.
Potential tax.
Own property.
More taxes and charges.
Leave a sufficiently large estate.
Tax again.
Not everyone pays all of those.
But British citizens increasingly feel that the state appears at an extraordinary number of stages between earning money and eventually passing it on.
With the tax burden heading towards a post-war record, that feeling isn't entirely the product of somebody's imagination.
---
W IS FOR WELFARE
One widely shared statistic says welfare spending now exceeds income-tax receipts.
There is a numerical basis for comparing those figures, but context matters enormously.
The welfare figure includes the State Pension.
Income tax is only one source of government revenue.
So no, Britain isn't simply taking £331 billion from workers and handing £333 billion to people sitting at home watching daytime television.
That is rubbish.
But there is still an enormous fiscal challenge.
An ageing population.
Growing pension costs.
Long-term sickness.
Economic inactivity.
A vast social-security budget.
The serious question is:
How do we sustain a humane safety net without making those who work, employ, save and invest carry an ever-growing burden?
That is a much harder question than shouting "benefits".
And Labour needs an answer that consists of something more imaginative than reaching deeper into the same taxpayers' pockets.
---
W IS ALSO FOR WINTER FUEL
Labour restricted Winter Fuel Payment.
There was a massive political backlash.
Labour then substantially reversed course.
So anyone saying today that Labour simply abolished Winter Fuel Payment is using an outdated line.
But the actual story is hardly flattering.
The Government introduced a highly controversial restriction.
Defended it.
Took an absolute political kicking.
Then retreated.
You can call that listening.
I suspect many pensioners might use a slightly different phrase.
---
SO WHAT ARE WE LEFT WITH?
This is the interesting part.
Throw away the dodgy social-media claims.
Throw away conspiracy theories.
Throw away the things that haven't been properly evidenced.
Throw away policies inherited from the Conservatives that are wrongly blamed solely on Labour.
Throw away future taxes presented as though they were already in force.
And what remains?
A heck of a lot.
A Labour Government presiding over a tax burden heading towards a post-war record.
Debt hovering around £3 trillion.
Higher employer National Insurance.
Higher Capital Gains Tax.
VAT on private school fees.
Inheritance-tax changes affecting pensions.
Future restrictions on pension salary sacrifice.
A future mileage tax for electric cars.
Frozen thresholds quietly pulling more people into tax.
A small-boats problem far from solved.
A France returns scheme operating at a scale that looks distinctly modest beside the overall problem.
Local elections Labour wanted to postpone before reversing course after legal pressure.
Enormous public spending.
Enormous borrowing.
And public services which, while improving in some areas, remain nowhere near the standard one might reasonably expect from a country taking such an enormous share of national income in taxation.
You don't need a conspiracy theory.
You need a calculator.
---
THE QUESTION LABOUR SHOULD BE ASKED AGAIN AND AGAIN
For me, it comes down to one thing:
WHERE IS THE MONEY GOING?
If the tax burden is heading towards 38.5% of GDP, where is the transformation?
If national debt is around £3 trillion, where is the transformation?
If government is spending more than it raises and borrowing the difference, where is the transformation?
Where are the public services functioning so brilliantly that the public thinks:
"You know what? Fair enough. Worth every penny."
Where is the visibly controlled border?
Where is the dramatic productivity improvement?
Where is the infrastructure revolution?
Where are the local services that make people gasp in admiration rather than sit on hold listening to Greensleeves for forty minutes?
Where is the prosperity ordinary families can actually feel?
Where is the state so efficient that taxpayers begrudgingly admit:
"They don't half spend it well."
Because if you demand record levels of taxation, the public has every right to demand record levels of competence.
---
AND PLEASE, STOP BLAMING THE LAST LOT FOREVER
Labour inherited a mess in a number of areas.
Absolutely.
The Conservatives left office with high debt, high taxation, enormous NHS pressures and serious structural problems.
That is part of the historical record.
But "the last Government" cannot become a four-year substitute for governing.
Every month Labour remains in office, Labour owns more of what happens.
Every Budget is Labour's.
Every tax change Labour chooses is Labour's.
Every spending priority is Labour's.
Every policy it announces and then reverses is Labour's.
Every opportunity to reform government that it declines is Labour's.
Eventually the stabilisers have to come off.
---
TAX MORE. SPEND MORE. BORROW MORE.
Perhaps the original meme needs updating.
Not:
If you earn it, they tax it.
That's too simplistic.
How about this?
You earn it.
They tax some of it.
You employ somebody.
They tax that too.
You invest successfully.
The Treasury takes an interest.
You save for retirement.
The rules change.
You buy the electric car government encouraged you to buy.
A mileage tax eventually arrives.
You build up assets.
Inheritance-tax policy changes.
Government spends the tax.
Then government spends some more.
Then government borrows the difference.
Then government explains that public services need more money.
Then comes another Budget.
At which point the taxpayer nervously checks whether the Chancellor has noticed anything else they own.
Perhaps Labour's economic strategy could therefore be condensed into five simple lines:
TAX MORE.
SPEND MORE.
BORROW MORE.
PROMISE MORE.
DELIVER TOO LITTLE.
And when somebody asks why the sums still don't add up?
Apparently there is always another black hole waiting to be discovered.
Funny, that.
The only hole that never seems difficult to locate is the one in the taxpayer's pocket.
---
Sources used in checking the figures and policies discussed above include HM Government and GOV.UK publications, the Office for Budget Responsibility, Office for National Statistics, Home Office, NHS England and House of Commons Library.
As ever, if somebody can demonstrate that a figure or factual statement is wrong, I am more than happy to correct it. Political opinion is fair game. Facts should remain facts.
#Labour #LabourGovernment #UKPolitics #Tax #TaxBurden #CostOfLiving #PublicSpending #NationalDebt #Borrowing #FiscalDrag #NationalInsurance #CapitalGainsTax #InheritanceTax #Pensions #SmallBoats #Immigration #NHS #LocalDemocracy #WinterFuelPayment #ElectricVehicles #Business #EconomicGrowth #PublicServices #GovernmentSpending #Taxpayer #Westminster #PoliticalAccountability #GovernmentAccountability #BritishPolitics #ValueForMoney
