Rachel Reeves has a vindictive streak as wide as a barn door. She loves to pile in on her (Conservative) predecessors, happily airbrushing events like Covid, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine or indeed the consequences of Gordon Brown’s legacy. Now of course she is facing her own crisis. There’s no doubt that she will try to pass the blame; that’s pretty much the only thing that she and Starmer are any good at. But more intelligent observers will recognise just how much worse Labour’s crazy socialist policies have made things.

As she sat down after her first budget in October 2024, this column noted how an opportunity for a micro business to create another job had been destroyed. Youth unemployment is now higher in the UK than the Eurozone for the first time since records began. This is a shocking indictment of Labour specifically, and socialism in general. The really crazy thing is that she is now trying to undo her damage by offering employers £3000 to take on young workers. Why not just tax them less and let them expand and create jobs, generating economic growth?

Meanwhile, unhinged Left wing energy policy is coming home to roost. Despite almost 50 per cent of our electricity being “green” prices are linked to international gas prices. So we are seeing no benefits from all the wind turbines and solar farms, and come June electricity prices are likely to rocket. But perhaps it’s more important to consider energy security. Labour have shut down North Sea exploration and fracking for onshore shale gas has been banned. The cost of energy makes our refineries uncompetitive and they are closing. So now we are dependant on imports of oil and gas as well as refined products including petrol and diesel. Are you feeling warm and virtuous, or are you feeling anxious?

With fuel and fertiliser prices rocketing and availability restricted, Welsh farmers are feeling very anxious. The real worry is whether diesel will be available to get the silage in. That can only feed through into food price inflation, hurting the least well off the most. So the very people the Left claim to stand for get hit hardest as a direct result of their stupidity.

To cap it all and despite manifesto promises to the contrary, Left wing parties seem determined to take us back into the sphere of the EU. With Starmer’s self-destructive negotiating skills, that will make us a rule taker but not a rule maker. No doubt he will also offer huge sums of our money for the privilege (think Chagos Islands). Reeves clearly sees that as a solution to our economic woes, created or made worse by her policies. But simultaneously she sees AI as critical for UK growth.

The problem is that the EU hate innovation, or at very least like to regulate it to destruction. In 2008, Eurozone and US GDP were almost identical at $14 trillion. In 2025, the Eurozone had grown to $20 trillion against $30 trillion in the US. The difference in growth of GDP per capita is even greater; the US has almost doubled whilst the Eurozone has increased by a quarter. (Figures sourced from Google AI). Tying ourselves to EU regulations isn’t an automatic path to growth; it’s more likely to restrict opportunity.

Precision Breeding (IBERS is a world leader in this) brings Welsh farmers new grass varieties that simultaneously increase their productivity, and benefit the environment. With climate change we desperately need this. The EU are busy over regulating and blocking these advances. It’s insane that those on the Left seem happy to sign us back up to the lead hand of EU bureaucracy, whilst claiming that growth is their number one goal.

The economic storm engulfing us isn’t Labour’s fault. But choosing to make us less resilient is. It’s time for those on the Left to take responsibility for their choices. Better still, start making good ones.