Is that it?
If the Chancellor has actually helped the economy or the poor yesterday, he might have got better headlines. But his efforts were too weak for the right and too cynical for everyone else.
He did nothing to halt the doom circle of productivity and growth but he did find millions for Canary Wharf, again. If it was anywhere else in the country Canary Wharf would be a boarded up, windswept, wasteland by now, but it was a Thatcherite dream so it must be kept alive. So too a “British ISA”, another tax cut for the rich and a cut in CGT.
A pity that doesn’t extend to the rest of the economy because there was virtually nothing to boost growth, this was far more an attempt to salt the earth by spending all the money the Labour party was depending on to make a change when it wins the next election.
On that subject, what are the chances of another budget before the next election? Certainly this one was hardly the vote winning game changer that the few faithful Tories dreamed of, why not wait and have another go?
Well, there really is no money left, waiting around in the hope that the OBR will change its mind and gift the Chancellor £20 billion or so to bribe voters with is very risky. Otherwise it will be more of the same, lots of bluster and hypocrisy and a few pence thrown at the feet of people paying far more in taxation.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
By Jonty Bloom Media
I had thought (silly me) that the Truss/Kwarteng fiasco would have served both to warn Hunt off stupid giveaways and also to deprive him of any cash to give to the already rich. How little I knew …