Labour’s promises to be laser-focused on growth and get value for taxpayers are in danger of looking like sick jokes

Mind the gap

IT is simply not sustainable for a Government to make the public sector richer as the private sector gets poorer.

It is a blueprint for stagnation, plummeting living standards and higher ­unemployment.

But that increasingly looks like where we are headed.

One quarter of the council tax you pay is now hived off not to fund social care or bin collections or to fix potholes but to pay staff’s already lavish pensions.

The argument for those has vanished.

Because their wages are also now six per cent higher than at private firms.

Despite this rapidly widening gap, State productivity is FALLING — as this high-tax Government leaves the private sector to foot the bill for everything.

Labour’s promises — to be laser-focused on growth and get value for taxpayers from every single penny spent — are in danger of looking like sick jokes.

Boats bilge

IT is now self-evident that “smashing the gangs” will not end the small boats crisis.

But then it was only ever a buzz-phrase crafted to pretend the Government, having scrapped our only viable deterrent, had an alternative.

The illegal migrants keep coming, at an accelerating rate. The total is now 150,000 —— more than the entire population of Blackpool.

Labour axed the Rwanda scheme solely because it was a Tory idea which offended their liberalism.

They didn’t want it to work — and admitted they would axe it even if it did.

What are they left with? Endlessly seeking help from abroad . . . as hundreds more arrive every day, each costing us a fortune to feed and house.

Will our borders EVER be secured?

Retail of woe

WE don’t know how our shops are meant to survive this assault from all sides.

It’s not just online competition or the crushing new costs from the Budget. It’s the obscene parking charges levied by councils and greedy private operators.

In many car parks shoppers are hit for £12-£15 for an afternoon’s stay. Bad enough. But in Cambridge it’s £26.40. No wonder shops are struggling.

Councils hope to bully drivers on to park-and-ride buses. Many will just shop online instead.

Result: A lingering death for High Street retailers and jobs.

All so that the fools responsible can claim they helped the planet.

More whine

WE’VE seen some crazy trigger warnings.

But to slap one on a Michael Portillo travel show over a harmless wine- tasting session is ludicrous.

His boozing isn’t a problem.

It’s his fashion choices that are triggering.