Weeks and days prior to last July’s general election, Labour were desperately keeping their policy cards close to the chest. Whenever asked about policy specifics, Sir Keir Starmer, Angela Raynor, Rachel Reeves and the conga line of chomping-at-the-bit shadow cabinet MPs, referred inquisitors to the party’s 2024 manifesto with its bold-font title: Change.
Having read the 142 page document, I found it not to be enlightening and refreshing. Seriously, it’s subjective and boring. There are a few bits on costing and tax increases of under £10bn to finance more teachers and NHS appointments. It was a manifesto that may have promised the winds of change, but instead on budget day, Britain was slammed by Storm Rachel. Labour’s election manifesto committed to “giving families and businesses due warning of tax and spending policies”, was akin to the warning the Americans received at Pearl Harbor.
I’m not writing an in-depth analysis of the Chancellor’s 2024 Autumn Budget. I’m not an economist and wouldn’t hazard an attempt to fathom the depth of this monumental task or understand the psyche of the people who deliver these modern commandments. I find it interesting that multi-millennia later we’re using tablets, just like Moses. I’m offering an observation, a perspective from a real person sitting in an old recliner contemplating if 12:30 in the afternoon was too early to reach for the single malt. After watching the circus called Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQ) that preceded the budget announcement I had my answer.
Pre-budget obligatory accolades
PMQ is a raucous 30 minutes of catcalling from all quarters of the chamber. The bobble heads seated along the front row on both sides of the dispatch box never nodding in sync and the Speaker of the House muttering a meagre plea for order. Parliamentarians refer to the decorum as a tradition. Many folks across Britain call it either immature, childish or stupid, or a combination thereof.
The two knights, Starmer and Ed Davey, along with others, thanked outgoing Tory leader Rishi Sunak for his service to the United Kingdom, wishing him and his family well in their future endeavours. Absent from the tributes were the words: austerity, Brexit, Liz Truss, a catastrophic mini-budget, Rwanda, ‘partygate’, NHS waiting lists, crumbling schools, unreliable train services, overcrowded prisons, polluted rivers and beaches, only to mention a few. A smiling Sunak took it all in stride and acknowledged the obligatory accolades from his peers. I wonder, if throughout it all, the Mamas and Papas’ California Dreaming played in his head?
A billion here, a billion there. After a while it loses perspective
Sitting in my beloved recliner, listening to the clearly annunciated words roll off the Chancellor’s tongue, while trying to multitask and keep up with the ‘Breaking News’ banners of BBC and Sky News scrolling across the bottom of the computer and television screens, all I could hear and see were numbers. Numbers that are, perhaps, difficult to comprehend by most of the people of this island nation, and possibly many MPs; £40bn in tax hikes, £76bn increased spending, £126bn in borrowing this year alone, £2.5bn here, £256mn there. It’s almost as if, hey, it’s only money.
The increases and shortfalls, the millions and billions of pounds doled out to ministerial departments, public and private industry sectors, will be analysed to ad nauseam well into the remaining days of this Chinese year of the Dragon. Fear not, for Labour’s first budget in 14 years, tabled in the House by the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer – with Reeves rightfully telling the young girls of Britain there is “no limit to your ambition” – will be passed and acted upon.
What goes around comes around
The Chancellor said, “This is a moment of fundamental choice for Britain. I have made my choices, the responsible choices: to restore stability to our country, to protect working people, more teachers in our schools, more appointments in our NHS, more homes being built, fixing the foundations of our economy, investing in our future, delivering change, rebuilding Britain.” Reeves added, “That doesn’t mean these choices are easy, but they are responsible.”
Labour went gung-ho in their pledge to protect working people by not raising income tax – for now – while in the meantime, “asking business to contribute more” by increasing employer National Insurance contributions from 1.2% to 15%, or increasing the minimum wage for England. These measures will, in reality, increase the cost of goods and services, and these costs will have to be passed on to workers and pensioners that Labour pledges to protect.
There is a silver lining, but not yet
Although the Labour budget of 2024 is massive in its numbers, and yet to be clarified regarding interpretation, there are some welcome announcements.
The budget allocates £1,8bn for the victims of the tainted blood scandal, and £11.8bn to those who were unjustly victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal.
A Covid corruption minister will be appointed, hopefully with some teeth and a mandate to report criminality to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), and claw back monies from grants and contracts.
The government will crackdown on tax avoidance schemes and abolish the non-dom tax status as of April 2025.
The windfall tax on energy giants will rise to 38% and, in addition to an increase in defence spending, the UK will continue to support Ukraine.
As with all government budgets, be they tabled in London, Cardiff, Belfast or Edinburgh, most of us will focus on the positives and concerns as each item relates to our station in life: a pensioner, worker, business owner, healthcare worker, single parent, a person on benefits, and others.
Don’t worry. Be happy. There’ll be another budget and, like this one, there’s bugger-all you or I can do about it. However, the one silver lining is, the closer a government is to the end of their election mandate the friendlier the budget.
More in politics.
