Mel Stride

Axe the Fuel Tax. Labour want to raise fuel duty - during a cost of living crisis! Hardworking people & families will pay the price. After years without an increase under the @Conservatives, Rachel Reeves is hitting motorists hard. Today the Conservatives will demand a vote.

Dartmoor Swimmer’s Eye View: Beautiful, fresh, invigorating wild swim in my local river this morning.

Wonderful day in Llandudno supporting @WelshConserv candidates and meeting local businesses 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Beautiful part of the world🍦

Tourism is a huge part of the Welsh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 economy - employing thousands of people, including right here in beautiful Llandudno. The message from local businesses was clear: No more tax hikes! @WelshConserv

Any economic growth is welcome, but the IMF were clear this week that under Labour our economy is totally unprepared for the recent energy shock. They have cut their growth forecasts for the UK more than any G7 nation. Rachel Reeves should stop asking other countries to follow her disastrous ‘plan’. Her choices have left us poorer, with soaring unemployment and the highest inflation in the G7. We need an urgent change of direction, cutting the benefits bill and drilling in the North Sea to deliver a stronger economy.

We'll keep fighting this power grab. And if Labour continue to force it through, when we get into government we will repeal it. This is a classic case of a Labour government thinking they know better than markets do. They're putting people's retirement incomes at risk. (7/7)

We do need to get pension funds investing more in the UK. But you do that by making the UK an attractive place to invest - not by government mandation. Rachel Reeves should be focusing on fixing our economy, not using people's pension pots for her own pet projects. (6/7)

RACHEL REEVES IS COMING FOR YOUR PENSION This afternoon in Parliament Labour pushed through a change in the law to allow the government to mandate how pension schemes invest your savings. Here's why Labour's pension grab is so dangerous👇(1/7)🧵

Rachel Reeves said she wouldn’t tax working people but she’s delivering the fastest rise in the tax burden of any major economy. That is reckless and totally unsustainable for our economy. Instead of raising taxes to pay for yet more welfare, Labour should be getting spending under control so we can bring down the tax burden and live within our means.

Rachel Reeves is coming for your pension. After #pmqs today the @Conservatives will vote to stop mandation AGAIN 👇🏻

Tax more, spend more, get poorer: Britain lags behind thanks to Labour dailymail.co.uk/debate/article…

When Labour won the general election Rachel Reeves promised ‘a new era for economic growth’. Growth, she declared, was her “number one mission.” She vowed to “fix Britain’s economic foundations” and make “every part of the country better off.” Today, that promise lies in tatters. The UK has just been slapped with the biggest growth downgrade in the G7 - a damning verdict on the Chancellor’s record. On a per-person basis, the International Monetary Fund (@IMFNews) say our growth prospects for this year are now bottom of the table. Far from leading a new era of prosperity, Britain is now lagging behind because of Rachel Reeves’ choices. It’s an utter humiliation for the self-styled ‘Iron Chancellor’. And Reeves can’t say she wasn’t warned. From the very start, the signs were there. Her first Budget didn’t back business - it battered it. A National Insurance hike that punished job creators. Business rate increases that squeezed the life out of hospitality. And now, the looming threat of the first fuel duty rise in 15 years. One bad decision might be misfortune but this is a pattern. What we’re seeing now is the inevitable result of Labour’s mistakes. Inflation driven higher. Unemployment heading skyward. Businesses closing their doors. Families feeling poorer. Britain stuck with the highest inflation in the G7 just as a fresh shock hits our economy from the conflict in the Middle East. And still Reeves and Ed Miliband refuse to row back on their net zero obsession that leaves us reliant on imported energy while our own oil and gas sits untapped. Incredibly, Reeves is telling the world to “follow my plan”. But why would anyone want to replicate what she has done to Britain’s economy? Because if this is the blueprint, it’s a masterclass in how to stall an economy. Tax more. Spend more. Get poorer. It’s not just misguided - it’s economically illiterate. The truth is simple. You cannot tax your way to growth. You cannot regulate your way to prosperity. And you certainly cannot rebuild confidence by hammering the very businesses that create jobs and wealth in the first place. Reeves must own this. Every downgrade, every closure, every squeezed household budget - it all traces back to choices made in Downing Street. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Under Kemi Badenoch, the @Conservatives offer a better path - one built on backing business and those who work. We would rein in the ballooning welfare bill, get more people into work, drill the North Sea and restore discipline to the public finances. We would back British business, not bash it - cutting taxes, easing the burden of regulation, and unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit that has always driven this country forward. Because Britain’s best days can still lie ahead of us. What’s needed now isn’t more of Rachel Reeves’s failed plan. It’s a change of direction, a return to sound economics, and a government that actually understands how growth happens. The world doesn’t need to follow her plan. International partners need to see Rachel Reeves as a cautionary tale of what happens when a politician does not understand the economy or business.

BREAKING IMF handing the UK the biggest downgrade in the G7 is a clear verdict on Rachel Reeves’ choices - and she’s got no one to blame but herself. The Chancellor is a cautionary tale of what happens when a politician simply doesn’t understand the economy or business.

The former Labour minister who wrote Keir Starmer’s Strategic Defence Review has accused the PM of “corrosive complacency” and said “we cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget”. I completely agree. It was exactly what I told Starmer in Parliament yesterday and said in my speech to Defence experts at the weekend. We need to get serious. The Conservatives would restore the two child benefit cap and repurpose funds from net zero projects to invest in our military. Meanwhile the government have NO plan and, as Lord Robertson points out, Rachel Reeves had only 40 words on defence in her Budget and none in the Spring Statement. You can’t trust Labour on defence.

Britain is weaker, poorer and far more exposed thanks to Rachel Reeves’ choices.

While Rachel Reeves doles out a benefits bonanza, millions of hardworking families are being taken for a ride - and watching those on welfare leapfrog them. If you work, you should be better off. It’s that simple.

Spot on from @KemiBadenoch We are the only party demonstrating fiscal responsibility through our actions as well as our words.