Just when you thought Rachel Reeves‘ second (and almost certainly last) Budget couldn’t descend any further into farce, it managed to deliver one final joke.
Nearly an hour before the Chancellor stood up in the Commons to reveal the contents of her fiscal statement, they were already common knowledge.
In an unprecedented blunder, the Office for Budget Responsibility put all the main points on its website for all to see.
This final act of incompetence was a perfect metaphor for the monumental ineptitude and lack of professionalism displayed by this floundering Government and its hapless Chancellor.
After all the leaks, counter-leaks, backstairs briefings and U-turns, there were no big surprises in the Budget itself. It was every bit as horrendous as anticipated.
For Britain’s strivers, savers, entrepreneurs and homeowners, the prudent, aspirational and proudly self-reliant, it was the nightmare before Christmas.
This country is beset by crises on all fronts. Inflation rising, growth and productivity stalled, welfare spending out of control, unemployment on an upward trajectory, and the cost of living spiralling.
So, did Ms Reeves address any of these issues? Sadly not. Instead, she thumped the hardworking families of Middle Britain with a £26billion tax raid to fund a reckless and unsustainable benefits splurge. As Tory leader Kemi Badenoch put it in her passionate response: ‘This is a Budget for Benefits Street, paid for by working people.’
Just when you thought Rachel Reeves’ second (and almost certainly last) Budget couldn’t descend any further into farce, it managed to deliver one final joke
In an unprecedented blunder, the Office for Budget Responsibility put all the main points on its website for all to see
The centrepiece was the Chancellor’s decision to freeze income tax thresholds for another three years – having rejected the same measure last year because it would ‘hurt working people’.
This shameless U-turn will take £8.3billion out of the pockets of those very working people, bringing nearly a million more of them into the higher rate band and 720,000 more into the basic rate.
Those saving for a pension through ‘salary sacrifice’, whereby they accept lower wages to put extra cash into their retirement fund, have been punished.
If you drive an electric car, save in a cash ISA, have a valuable home, take income from rental properties or share dividends you are also having your pocket picked.
Labour is even taxing some of our smaller pleasures – such as taking a weekend break or savouring a cappuccino or milkshake.
And for what? To lift the two-child cap so large families on benefits may enjoy a more comfortable lifestyle and to fund handouts for the millions who choose not to work.
She says she is asking everyone to contribute but this is nothing less than a redistribution of wealth from the industrious to the inert.
As Tory leader Kemi Badenoch put it in her passionate response: ‘This is a Budget for Benefits Street, paid for by working people’
Ms Reeves said last year, after her first Budget raised taxes by £40billion, that she had ‘fixed the foundations’ of the economy and would not be ‘back for more’.
Both these claims are demonstrable lies. Her abject failure to rein in public spending while taking the tax burden to stratospheric levels threatens to send this country into a tax, spend and borrow ‘doom loop’.
Before her statement, the Chancellor declared: ‘This Budget is for you, the British people’. The truth is, it was a Budget to appease her party’s Left-wing backbenchers, who think the Government can keep on spending without ever having to pay the bill.
Labour indulged a similar fantasy in the 1970s and it ended badly – 25 per cent inflation, financial collapse and mass unemployment. Those who were there are experiencing a distinct feeling of deja-vu.