Britain’s small business community has reacted with thinly veiled fury to the disclosure that Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden privately told Lord Mandelson that every Labour meeting was consumed by the question of “who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others”, with one CEO declaring the country is “rearranging deckchairs on a very expensive, heavily-taxed ship”.
The message, sent in May 2025 when McFadden was running the Cabinet Office, was among more than 1,000 pages of correspondence released following the Humble Address compelling disclosure of communications with the former US ambassador. In it, the minister bluntly tells Mandelson that his colleagues “are asking the wrong questions”.
A spokesperson for McFadden said the minister had “fully complied with the Humble Address and handed over all messages”, adding that his only contact with Lord Mandelson since the latter left government had been to urge him to “think about the victims in all this and apologise to them”.
For business owners contending with the highest UK tax burden in seven decades, however, the leaked exchange has confirmed a long-held suspicion: that the Treasury sees enterprise as a cash machine rather than an engine of growth.
Paul Denley, chief executive of London-based Oakham Wealth Management, said the comment reflected a default political reflex that was strangling investment.
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