We need a fundamental reset of who this economy serves, says Cassie Groos
Yes, the budget’s gestures are welcome (Rachel Reeves targets UK’s wealthiest in £26bn tax-raising budget, 26 November). Abolishing the two-child cap is the right call, but it is solving a failure that should not exist. No advanced economy should have child poverty baked so deeply into its design. Freezing train fares, taxing wealth a little harder – fine. Good. Necessary. But still just sticking plasters on wounds that have been haemorrhaging for years. And once again, it is the middle classes footing the bill while the ultra-wealthy and the corporate giants look on, essentially untouched.
Meanwhile, the core problem remains unaddressed: an economic model built to maximise shareholder returns while hollowing out wages, public services and social resilience. Until we shift that model towards high wages, broad-based prosperity and an economy where labour, not capital, holds the centre of gravity, every budget, red, blue, green or technocratic beige, will remain cosmetic. What is needed is a full package of structural reforms: corporate governance that shares power with workers, taxation that shifts the burden upward instead of protecting vast concentrations of private wealth, and incentives rewired so that companies cannot keep extracting while offloading the consequences on to the public.
