Has Labour’s budget abandoned London and turned the capital into a cash cow for everyone else?

Today’s budget leaves London becalmed. Did the Chancellor mention our great capital city even once?

The silence speaks volumes. Instead of 1300 extra police, the Mayor is cutting 2500. Of the 3 big hoped-for transport projects, we have nothing: no mention of the Bakerloo Line or West London Orbital, and only a vague claim of “support” for the DLR extension to Thamesmead, and no money to pay for it.

No mention, either, of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, last year worth £63 million to London. It paid for business development, skills, and growth projects across the capital, but all that will end in March.

As City Hall stares down the worst budget position in its 25 year history and London councils of all colours wrestle with soaring bills for social care and temporary accommodation, the Chancellor offered us nothing.

Meanwhile, the crushing weight of last year’s National Insurance rise is still costing people’s jobs and forcing businesses to pass on the cost through higher prices.

As Labour boast of tackling child poverty, what do they think is happening in households when a parent loses their job and the price of everything goes up?

So today’s anti-London budget is particularly crushing. When Labour talk about “those with the broadest shoulders” having to “pay their share”, you might have twigged that they are talking about Londoners.

They see the success of this vibrant international city as a cash cow for their pet projects.

We will lose jobs in the capital because of this budget. We will see the price of food rise, as our own budgets tighten.

Those Londoners who just about manage to keep their heads above water will find themselves fighting for air as the cumulative weight of Labour’s policies drags them under.

All this, because Labour refuse to get control of spending, not least the out-of-control welfare bill. Their backbench MPs heartily cheered the failure to make the tough but needed decisions to grip the nation’s finances, but as Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch made clear: hitting workers, pensioners, and savers to keep Labour backbenchers happy is no long term plan.

The Mayor’s own lukewarm response tells us just how bad it is: he struggled to locate anything positive in an hour-long speech by a Chancellor he campaigned to elect.

From town halls to Westminster, Labour have taken Londoners’ political support for granted for too long.

Loyalty is a two-way street, savvy Londoners are starting to look elsewhere: the trickle may soon become a flood.

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Neil Garratt AM, is the Leader of the City Hall Conservatives.

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