This is a slightly edited extract from an article originally published in The Telegraph on 29th October.
Let’s call John Healey’s debut Budget what it was. This was a thinly disguised piece of political window-dressing – a cynical “retail Budget” engineered entirely with an eye on an approaching general election.
Instead of showing bold leadership, the Chancellor delivered a patchwork of gimmicks, giveaways and minor tweaks – an exercise in fiddling, in other words, while the economy burns.
There was a little bit here, a little bit there. Don’t get me wrong, they were all attractive measures in their own right. But they will do absolutely nothing to stop us all getting poorer each year under this government.
You only needed to hear Healey recite the latest growth forecasts, which have been revised down, to see it would require more than just tinkering if we are to get the country moving again.
Next year, the economy is expected to grow by a measly 1%. It will peak at less than 2% a year over the next five years, despite the economic boost expected from the AI revolution.
But instead of radical, life-altering surgery, all we got from the despatch box was one hour’s worth of one-off sticking plasters that might make for a brief headline on the evening news, but do nothing to rescue a British economy suffocating under the weight of high taxation, sluggish growth, and runaway state spending.
The paucity of ambition from this government is as staggering as it is embarrassing.
Just look at our tax burden. It’s going up again to the highest level since the Second World War. Millions of people, who never considered themselves high earners, are now paying the top rate of tax because of frozen thresholds.
Our debts are spiralling at a terrifying rate. By 2031 we’ll be spending £160 billion a year on interest alone – up £36 billion a year. That’s money which could be being spent on our Armed Forces, our hospitals or funding tax cuts.
Reform stands ready with a fully costed plan to fix our economy and give working families some relief.
We have identified £40 billion of emergency cuts which will allow us to cut taxes by £1,300 per household and lower the highest tax burden on record.
We would scrap benefits for foreigners, abolish Net Zero targets, slash foreign aid as well as take an axe to all those pointless government quangos.
We will raise the income tax threshold to £15,000, putting an extra £500 in people’s pockets. We will get rid of tax on overtime so that hard work pays.
For all Mr Healey’s clever little tricks today, the brutal truth is we remain on a fiscal knife-edge. Britain is Broke. Britain needs Reform.
Let’s call John Healey’s debut Budget what it was. This was a thinly disguised piece of political window-dressing – a cynical “retail Budget” engineered entirely with an eye on an approaching general election.
Instead of showing bold leadership, the Chancellor delivered a patchwork of gimmicks, giveaways and minor tweaks – an exercise in fiddling, in other words, while the economy burns.
There was a little bit here, a little bit there. Don’t get me wrong, they were all attractive measures in their own right. But they will do absolutely nothing to stop us all getting poorer each year under this government.
You only needed to hear Healey recite the latest growth forecasts, which have been revised down, to see it would require more than just tinkering if we are to get the country moving again.
Next year, the economy is expected to grow by a measly 1%. It will peak at less than 2% a year over the next five years, despite the economic boost expected from the AI revolution.
But instead of radical, life-altering surgery, all we got from the despatch box was one hour’s worth of one-off sticking plasters that might make for a brief headline on the evening news, but do nothing to rescue a British economy suffocating under the weight of high taxation, sluggish growth, and runaway state spending.
The paucity of ambition from this government is as staggering as it is embarrassing.
Just look at our tax burden. It’s going up again to the highest level since the Second World War. Millions of people, who never considered themselves high earners, are now paying the top rate of tax because of frozen thresholds.
Our debts are spiralling at a terrifying rate. By 2031 we’ll be spending £160 billion a year on interest alone – up £36 billion a year. That’s money which could be being spent on our Armed Forces, our hospitals or funding tax cuts.
Reform stands ready with a fully costed plan to fix our economy and give working families some relief.
We have identified £40 billion of emergency cuts which will allow us to cut taxes by £1,300 per household and lower the highest tax burden on record.
We would scrap benefits for foreigners, abolish Net Zero targets, slash foreign aid as well as take an axe to all those pointless government quangos.
We will raise the income tax threshold to £15,000, putting an extra £500 in people’s pockets. We will get rid of tax on overtime so that hard work pays.
For all Mr Healey’s clever little tricks today, the brutal truth is we remain on a fiscal knife-edge. Britain is Broke. Britain needs Reform.
Photo by: HM Treasury.
