If it’s not hypocrisy that kills this Labour Government, numbers could just push them over the edge

The Government is facing an assault from all opposition parties but it’s numbers that are really hurting them.

Any article that relies heavily on numbers faces an old dilemma.

The ‘Mark Twain quote’ familiar to most:

“There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics”

It’s been a historical convention of the House of Commons, but also political journalism that you don’t accuse politicians (‘honourable members’ if we are to still believe that) a liar. In recent years that convention has juddered.

People openly called Boris Johnson a liar, and then accused him of lying about it when he said he wasn’t but it seems that ‘convention I mention is the painted bus that has now left the station. Andrew Neil brought the focus back to the current PM in a fiery assault when a piece entitled: “In 55 years of covering politics, I’ve never accused any UK government of routinely telling untruths. But Starmer & Co have taken lying and gaslighting to a deplorable level” appeared in the Daily Mail, an outlet the left routinely and instinctively dismiss with accusations of – lying.

It’s a brave journalist who sees a Mark Twain quote (who actually attributed the line to Benjamin Disraeli, who may not have even said it – there’s irony for you) and raises a defence quoting the rapper Jay-Z !

However it is he who popularised the lyric “Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t”

After a reminder, courtesy of the resignation of Rushnara Ali (which our columnist David Gauke covered well on Monday) of where I started my critique of this Government a year ago – if it is indeed “the hypocrisy that will kill you” it is numbers that will push you over the edge.

I’ve had cause to note the bizarre nature of this Government’s Communications strategy before. It’s so odd it’s about the only failure, of many, Starmer is on record admitting to. Even so for a man who loves the word ‘change’, he hasn’t changed that. If he wants a real plan for change, plan to change the Comms. Please.

However it goes further back than Starmer as leader.

Ian Dunt a leftwing columnist at the i, and not a man I agree with much, did however point out recently something I think is spot on

“No 10’s communication strategy has seemed utterly dated. It hasn’t even been fighting the last war, but the one before that – their approach basically unchanged from the days of New Labour.”

If the message they got from the Blair and Campbell days was the Mandelsonian mantra to just ‘keep repeating the slogans until everyone in politics is sick of them but you might just have reached a member of the public’ they are indeed fighting an old war and without the ammunition Labour had in ’97.

We’ve all seen it: “We’ve fixed the foundations of the economy”, “We’ve secured our borders” etc. But, as the Conservatives have repeated, also ad nauseum, since before Labour won the 2024 election – change works both ways, and what really undermines the pseudo AI generated Labour social media boasts is the numbers.

We’ve just had two incredibly stark sets of numbers that put so many holes in Labour’s go to lines about the economy, and our borders it makes those infamous foundations, and smashed gangs look like especially bubbly chunks of Swiss cheese.

Let’s start with jobs.

Where, despite the Employer National Insurance rise (or ‘jobs tax’ as the Tories have branded it) and the Employment Rights Bill (‘The bill for unemployment’ as the shadow business secretary calls it) supposedly in the mythical Labourverse they are getting people into work, the numbers tell a very different story.

Progressives are supposed by definition to move forward. They are going backwards.

Tim Wallace of the Telegraph spelled out how

“The latest employment figures show just how badly the labour market has fared during Labour’s first year in power, with young workers bearing the brunt. The number of people in work has dropped by 164,000 since Labour entered government, according to payrolls data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – reflecting the sharpest drop since Covid. Most tellingly, jobs peaked in October last year, on the eve of the Budget in which Reeves raised taxes by a record-breaking £40bn.That included a shock £25bn raid on employers’ National Insurance contributions (NICs), as she raised the rate from 13.8pc to 15pc and lowered the threshold at which it is paid from £9,100 to £5,000. Not only was this a devastating blow for some of Britain’s biggest employers, but it also hammered smaller businesses that rely heavily on young part-time workers.”

The numbers don’t get better when it turns to benefits, a ballooning cost that Labour seem now paralysed by their own MPs to do anything to tackle.

Figures from the DWP reveal the number of Universal Credit claimants has risen by 1.1 million since July last year. As of last month, 8 million people claimed Universal Credit, up from 6.9 million last July. That’s up by 16 per cent since Labour took over.

And yet even yesterday when asked about the economy the Chancellor trotted out the same words we are used to by now:

“There is more to do, but in the first year, we’ve managed to return stability to the economy, we’re growing the economy and reducing costs, particularly mortgage costs for hard-pressed families”

As wiser minds than mine have put it, very simply – if you tax employers harder, then introduce legislation that puts more obligations on employers, don’t be surprised if you get a jobs recession. Smiling through the tears our Chancellor ignores it all and, just as Sunak said they would, eyes more taxes to fill her own black holes.

Kemi Badenoch pointed out that such a future doesn’t drive people to work harder, if they can get a job at all, it drives them away.

“The trend that we’re seeing is businesses closing, unemployment rising, business confidence is at the lowest it’s ever been. It’s not just millionaires and non-doms leaving the UK. It’s young entrepreneurs who think that there’s no opportunity here.”

The numbers get no better when one turns to the ongoing problem of illegal crossings of the channel which hasn’t so much seen the smashing of the gangs but the smashing of records.

Home Office figures have shown that 50,000 migrants have crossed the Channel since July 5 2024 – when Starmer took charge. A figure he has reached 200 days sooner than his predecessor. So much for that promise to get a grip on our borders. The new ‘lots in – a few out’ deal with France did not deter the 474, mostly young men, who arrived on Monday alone. Indeed Robert Jenrick has visited camps in Northern France where he’s promising another video tomorrow showing “The French are aiding and abetting small boat migrants coming into the UK.”

The 50,000 arrivals is a sliver under the population of Royal Tumbridge Wells. When the majority are in taxpayer-funded accommodation if that doesn’t spark letter writing outrage I’m not sure what will. Yes, once again, the Tories didn’t ‘stop the boats’  but they did reduce numbers in 2023 and 2024. Labour still hold the record with 2025. They might not want a winter of discontent but they’ll be praying for a winter of bad weather in the channel.

This then combined with a number of other areas of policy is the picture. In most cases, the numbers are not just ‘not on Labours side’ they are going in the wrong direction and consequently undermine any churning out of repetitive claims to the contrary. It’s bad for them but also it’s bad for Britain.

The least they could do would be to admit it.

Women lie, men lie, numbers don’t. Just like the rapper said.