Ed Miliband’s dream is just about to come true – and it’s a nightmare | Personal Finance | Finance
I pinch myself thinking that it has come to this point. Incredibly, Ed Miliband is now Labour’s power broker. Party activists love him. All left-wing MPs are on his side. Andy Burnham will soon be showering love on her too. If Burnham wins the Makerfield by-election on July 18, Miliband will help replace Keir Starmer as Prime Minister. And Burnham will reward him handsomely.
Ed Miliband is now an unstoppable force. Keir Starmer tried to sack him as energy minister but backed down when Miliband refused to back down. Rachel Reeves pressured him to ease his insane ban on new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea, then backed off. The man is untouchable. And now it will become even stronger. Miliband knows exactly what he wants in return for taking Andy Burnham’s No 10. And that means a horror show for the rest of us.
Miliband may be the big man within the Labor Party, but he is seen as a threat to the outside world. His net-zero bigotry has crushed industry while sending our home energy bills through the roof. The insane North Sea drilling ban has deprived the Treasury of billions of dollars and destroyed tens of thousands of jobs. This is the last person I want as chancellor. But it’s the job he covets, and Burnham seems ready to give it to him.
Rachel Reeves will reluctantly be replaced by the powerful Miliband. Given the damage he did as energy minister, I dread to think what he would do if he was given a whole economy to play with. Britain will step out of the frying pan and straight into the fire.
It will almost certainly start by pouring more of our money into fantastic net zero projects. He previously supported estate taxes and a top income tax of 50p. Now he was going to force them both. Capital gains tax and inheritance tax increases would almost certainly follow, and he would consider introducing a wealth tax on top of that. And of course, it will further strengthen unions while undermining businesses with more regulations and more windfall taxes. It would cause economic damage and Labor members would love it.
Miliband could crush growth and alienate even richer taxpayers, but here’s the scariest of them all. As with net zero, we have learned that when its plans are challenged, it simply doubles down.
At least Keir Starmer has made a U-turn on some of his worst ideas. Miliband never backs down. He never will. Starmer, on the other hand, lacks faith. Miliband is a complete believer, sure that he is right on everything. And his newfound power-broker status clearly made him dizzy.
He is said to have enjoyed confronting cabinet members by crushing them by refusing to admit he was wrong about anything. As if all this wasn’t bad enough, he will unleash like-minded lunatics like Torsten Bell, the loud-mouthed pensions minister who has never seen a tax he doesn’t want to raise.
The only force that can stop Miliband is the bond market. Even then I’m not sure he’ll listen. The gilt crisis and currency meltdown could be the endgame. This is a nightmare in the making and may only be weeks away. It’s a great time to be Ed Miliband. And it’s a nightmare for the rest of us.
