Mark 🇬🇧 🇮🇱

Now today's out the way I'm sure we will be hearing a lot more about how: - Labour's first two Budgets increased taxes on British workers by £36 billion and £26 billion respectively, pushing the tax burden to an historic high of 38.3% of GDP - The OBR forecasts 240,000 more people will be unemployed in 2026 than it previously projected - it said this is largely attributable to Labour's employment policies - The UK unemployment rate was 4.9% as of early 2026, up from 4.6% a year earlier, an increase of 124,000 - Total UK welfare spending this year is estimated at £333.7 billion - up from £315 billion - The UK is spending £301 million per day just to service its debt interest on Labour borrowing - Labour promised 1.5 million new homes this parliament. Between 9 July 2024 and 15 March 2026, it had build just 342,100, way off target - More than 1 million young people aged 16-24 were not in education, employment or training in the first quarter of this year - up 89,000 - The NHS waiting list stands at 7.22 million cases - When Labour took office in July 2024, just 58.8% of patients were treated within 18 weeks. The target is 92%. By March 2026 it had only reached 65.3% - Around 100,000 patients are waiting over a year for NHS treatment - Over the past year, approximately 1.56 million people waited more than 4 hours in A&E - a huge breach of the target - The outstanding caseload in the Crown Court stands at around 80,200 - the highest level recorded since 2016 and more than double the pre-Covid caseload - A quarter of all Crown Court cases have been open for more than a year - There are currently 14,749 sexual offences cases waiting to go to the Crown Court - a 75% increase - There were approximately 530,640 shoplifting offences recorded in England and Wales over the past year - the highest in the entire time series on record - There were 41,000 small boat arrivals in 2025 - Of all people who have arrived by small boat since 2018, only around 7,500 (4%) had been returned from the UK by the end of 2025 - Last year the Home Office spent £4 billion on asylum support. This includes £2.1 billion on hotel accommodation alone - around £6 million per day