The department store is closing its last store after more than 140 years in business.
Beales final remaining store in Poole’s Dolphin Centre is set to close at the end of May and is displaying posters featuring Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ image with the tagline ‘Rachel Reeves’ closing down sale, up to 80%, everything must go’.
Chief executive of Beales, Tony Brown recently told The Telegraph that increases in National Insurance contributions and minimum wage which were announced in Labour’s Autumn Statement last year meant the business had become ‘unviable’.
Brown said the posters were intended as a ‘poke in the ribs’ on behalf of the retail industry.
He predicted that more retailers were at risk of closure if the government’s strategy continued and said the government had been ‘manipulative’ with its manifesto commitment ‘not to increase taxes on working people’.
He said: “I consider myself a working person – people who run businesses are working people. It was manipulative of the government to give the impression that all the increases in costs to businesses would not impact working people.”
