By GB News (World News) | Created at 2025-04-01 11:11:18 | Updated at 2025-04-02 17:45:53
1 day ago
Conservative MP Andrew Griffith has launched a scathing attack on Labour and Chancellor Rachel Reeves as millions of UK households face a wave of bill increases in what has been dubbed 'Awful April'.
Speaking to GB News, Griffith said: "It's April Fools' Day today, but it's the British people who are being taken for fools."
Households across the nation woke up today to rises in council tax, energy, water, TV licence, car tax and broadband bills.
The increases will squeeze already tight budgets, with Citizens Advice warning that single parents are among the hardest hit by the changes.
Households across the nation are hit with price rises from today
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Griffiths MP told GB News: "The performance of this Government, I think, is what really upsets people, whether it's attacking farmers or taking away pensioners' Winter Fuel Payments.
"We're calling today 'Rachel Fool's Day' because she's costing in the National Insurance jobs tax rise, £3,500 for every working family. That's the sort of thing, I think, that rightly gets people's ire."
He added: "This is a terrible Government. It's doing a terrible job for the economy and for businesses.
"Business rates are going up, and the terrible 300-page red tape Employment Rights Bill is going to set businesses back and drive up unemployment in this country.
"I can well understand your viewer's frustration, but I think it's as much about the performance of this Government.
"If they were growing the economy, if people were getting were more well off, if bills weren't rising, perhaps there'd be a slightly different attitude, and rightly so."
He went on to outright reject Rachel Reeves's claims Britons will be £500 better off by the end of this current Government.
He continued: "The reality is, last week the OBR halved the growth forecast for this country.
"As a patriot, it pains me deeply. I want any Government to succeed. I want them to grow the economy.
"I don't want us to be losing 11,000 millionaires, talented wealth creators every year overseas because of Labour's prejudiced attack on things like our independent schools or those people that do create wealth and grow businesses in this country."
Touching on reports Britain could be on the receiving end of Donald Trump's trade tariffs, Griffiths lamented the news as "an absolute failure of trade policy, the like of which I don't think we've seen for a generation".
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He added: "If there was one country in the world that had the ability to successfully conclude a really close trade partnership with our single largest trade partner, it’s the United Kingdom, and this Government has absolutely squandered that opportunity.
"This will be an epic failure of trade policy. It will be enormously damaging to our economy. The Prime Minister should come to Parliament this afternoon and explain for the first time what his plans are in respect of US trade.
"And the Chancellor, I’m afraid, is going to have to come back to Parliament in the very near future because her emergency Budget has not lasted a full week.
"She made no provision for the potential impact on the economy of tariffs, a sliver of headroom that will now be completely exhausted.
"The OBR itself says that the impact of tariffs will be to lower the already anemic growth in her forecasts. It’s very, very sad.
"It’s April Fools’ Day today, but it’s the British people who are being taken for fools."
The increases will squeeze already tight budgets
GB NEWS
Council tax is seeing some of the steepest increases, with most households in England facing the maximum rise of 4.99 per cent.
Consumer expert Harry Kind told BBC Breakfast that "awful April is a bit of an opportunity April" as there are ways to make savings.
He suggested it's a good time to look for new broadband and phone contracts, as prices have decreased significantly in recent years.
For food costs, Kind recommended shopping around, saying there's "a lot of money to be saved" by shopping online.
