‘Growth-focused’ Labour has tripped at first hurdle – our woeful GDP ­figures are a bitter blow to Starmer

Growing gone

OUR “growth-focused” Government has tripped at the first hurdle.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is putting a brave face on it, but the woeful GDP ­figures for Labour’s first three months — plunging into minus territory in ­September — are a bitter blow.

We have to wonder just what Keir Starmer expected.

His party got so addicted to trashing the Conservatives while in opposition they couldn’t stop once in power.

Time and again they told the world the Tories broke Britain, our prospects were bleak and the Budget would inevitably be grim.

Like the £22billion “black hole” the OBR refuses to confirm, these were damaging exaggerations.

Labour then handed inflation-busting pay rises and new powers to the militant unions while bludgeoning wealth-creating businesses with a jobs tax and suffocating extra regulations.

Now, despite lower interest rates, we have plummeted from top of the G7 growth chart to second bottom.

Tediously opportunistic Remoaners hope to pin all this on Brexit.

Bank of England chief Andrew Bailey, fresh from failing to spot surging inflation in 2021, wants closer ties to Brussels. Why?

If EU membership was a golden ticket, why are France, Italy and Germany in dire straits? It’s America, where growth is rampant, we should be closer to.

And Labour should realise this:

You won’t get bumper growth via record high taxes, crushing new burdens on the private sector, mass migration and militant unions calling the shots.

Hateful waste

AT least ONE former Director of Public Prosecutions talks sense about the rank idiocy of police “non-crime hate” probes.

The Government inexplicably thinks people should be investigated for legally expressing opinions it finds unpalatable. Including kids being rude to each other. And a Telegraph journalist, ­confronted over some deleted tweet.

Cops only find time for it by neglecting actual crimes wrecking actual lives.

As Lord Macdonald, Keir Starmer’s predecessor at the CPS, says: “A crime is a crime — a non-crime is a non-crime.

"The idea police are recording the name of a child because that child has described another child as smelling like a fish is beyond belief.” Exactly.

It is a corrosive assault on free speech. Labour must end it.

Brave Davina

EACH year the fabulous Davina McCall helps The Sun celebrate the best of the NHS.

And today the host of our Who Cares Wins awards has a new reason to be grateful for its skill and care.

The star asked fans to “pray for me” before her op for a brain tumour.

We did, Davina . . . like the rest of the nation. Get well soon.