BRIAN READE: 'Britain's a financial mess - we must pay more tax to fix Tory mistakes'

If voters were asked for the one trait they would dearly love to see more of in politicians, the vast majority would cite honesty.

Imagine if Keir Starmer had said this week: “I now back a Palestinian state - not because of the slaughter in Gaza, but because my MPs are so appalled by it I might lose hundreds of them if I don’t distance myself from the IDF butchers. And from now on I’ll come clean after every U-turn.” You’d think more of him, wouldn’t you?

Imagine if Kemi Badenoch said: “The main reason the population of England and Wales has shot up by 2.6 million since 2020 is not the small boats but right-wingers like me selling you the myth that Brexit would let us take back control of our borders. Well, we were lying.” Again, you’d think more of her.

Now imagine if Rachel Reeves levelled with us by saying: “Us politicians have been selling you a false illusion that we can have world-class public services and low taxation. We can’t. It’s why Britain is broken. And so, being Labour, we’re going for world-class public services, and that means reneging on our manifesto pledge and raising direct taxes.”

Now you might not like the idea of paying more tax but you would probably agree with her appraisal of the financial mess we are in, and how the most urgent issue we face is the abject state of virtually every public service we once treasured.

When Labour took office last year, ministers proclaimed that “the grown-ups are back in charge”. Why not prove it by having an adult conversation with us and spelling out the facts of life?

That we’re living way beyond our means and cannot dig our way out of a financial black hole by cutting public services because the Tories slashed them to the bone, and made the coffers emptier with two cynical pre-election National Insurance cuts to try to save their skin. And with an ageing population and increased defence spending, things will only get bleaker. So we all need to pay more tax, with those who earn the most paying the most. Like we used to.

When I started work in 1976 the basic rate of tax was 35%. Then along came tax-slashing Margaret Thatcher, but even when she left office in 1990 the basic rate stood at 25%. As successive governments have cut that since, today’s basic rate is 20%. In Holland it’s 36.93%, Belgium is 25% and Italy 23%.

If we lifted the basic rate back to what it was under Thatcher we’d raise £34.5 billion a year. But that won’t happen. Yet lifting it only one per cent would raise £8.2 billion a year by the end of this parliament. Lifting the higher rate, reinstating the 50% rate George Osborne dropped, and bringing in a wealth tax for those with assets above £10 million would raise many more billions. And prove we’re all doing our bit.

I’m sure the majority of British people want to see first-class public services and are prepared to pay for them. Certainly the ones who elected this government.

After an ineffective and almost apologetic year in power, it’s time for Labour to go on the offensive by not just fighting for the kind of country they believe in.

But by being honest and telling us we have to pay for it.

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A few thoughts on the Lionesses’ remarkable victory against the odds.

How refreshing it was to see English football fans enjoying themselves without singing about shooting down German bombers, and those back home in pubs not hurling pints into the air whenever a goal was scored.

What a wonderful two fingers to the money-obsessed men who run football that the women’s Euros in Switzerland (where the prize was £34million) was deemed far more exciting and watchable than the mainly ignored men’s Club World Cup in America (total prize money £743million).

And how ludicrous is our honours system that some MPs are demanding every England player is made a dame. Yet had they lost the final there may have been the odd call to give them CBEs.

Meaning, in the eyes of those who believe in it, the highest honour the British state can bestow on a woman depended on a couple of Spaniards taking better penalties. How absurd.

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PORN star Bonny Blue, who is proud to have slept with 1,057 men in 12 hours, describes her job as being “a bit like a community worker”.

And I’m sure many Tories agree with that as they think everyone who does social work lays on their back all day screwing the taxpayer.

Much criticism has come the multi-millionaire’s way after a Channel 4 documentary on her this week, but I think she is simply someone who has compromised with her childhood dream of being a midwife. By working in more-or-less the same area.

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Rather than walk away with a shred of dignity, shamed ex-MasterChef host Gregg Wallace continues to keep on digging a hole so furiously he may soon reach Australia.

Rather than walk away with a shred of dignity, shamed ex-MasterChef host Gregg Wallace continues to keep on digging a hole so furiously he may soon reach Australia.

According to him, despite 45 separate complaints about his inappropriate behaviour being upheld by the BBC, he is a serial victim, not perpetrator, of sleaziness: “My God... have you got any idea how many times suggestive comments have been made to me? How many times I’ve been groped?” is his latest defence.

Well I’ll have a stab in the dark, mate. And say somewhere in the ballpark of none.

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THE WEEK’S FIVE BIG QUESTIONS:

Tommy Robinson fleeing the country as police want to question him over a vicious assault at a London railway station. What a brave leader, eh? What a hero.

When did we decide that unless you had money to queue-jump it was impossible to get a tooth taken out or sit a driving test in the UK?

If England’s female footballers continue to show themselves to be in a superior class to the males, how long before we see women explaining the offside rule to their partners?

Is there anything more hypocritical than high-profile expats who’ve moved abroad to pay less tax whining about migrants coming to the UK to make a better life?

Is there a smugger pair of people on the telly than the couple on the All Clear travel insurance commercial?