Just what were business leaders expecting when so many of them sucked up to Labour before the 2024 general election? Only Keir Starmer’s party, 121 of them declared in an open letter, could deliver Britain’s full economic potential. They swarmed around Rachel Reeves like drones around a queen bee. Richard Walker of Iceland even turned up to the party’s manifesto launch to praise it for its economic plans.

They are not cheering now. Only 17 of the 121 who signed the 2024 letter are currently prepared to restate their support for Labour. The rest are moaning – many of them anonymously – that they are being killed off by hikes in employers’ National Insurance and business rates, as well as the rise in the minimum wage and the Employment Rights Act. One complains of a ‘stream of anti-business policies’, while another talks of ‘consistently shit decision-making’. Well they might, and I have tremendous sympathy for any business people who find themselves in this position. 

Reeves’s speeches about ‘securonomics’ were word salads signifying nothing

Reeves’s........

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