Profits don't matter
Well not quite, but the Tory leadership candidates have just been warned that headline cuts to corporation tax are a blind alley and the country really needs a coordinated strategy to boost growth and investment.
This echos what a leading businessman once told me, cuts to corporation tax are fine but you have to make a profit before you pay a penny of it. For many firms and especially industry that means tax breaks to train and invest are far, far more important. Because without that they can’t compete, make money and a profit and then pay tax.
The knee jerk, faux Thatcherite reaction of the Tory candidates to cut corp. tax, is therefore not the answer. And anyway in the last 12 years they have slashed it to raise more money, then increased it to raise more money and are now planning to cut it to help business (ie it will cost the government money) —tells you all you need to know.
Some of these people are very wealthy and have earned millions but none seems to understand basic economics. Or they have forgotten it because of their desperation for the top job and because their kow-towing to the far right fantasists in their own party has blinded them to reality.
Anyone elected in this atmosphere is not going to do the right thing.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.