06 March 2024 , 18:06
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This was an unconvincing Budget by an unconvincing Chancellor.
The central premise of Jeremy Hunt’s statement was the economy had turned a corner and only the Conservatives could deliver low taxes, decent public services and growth. This would have been a hard sell at the best of times but it needed a much better salesman than Hunt to sound even remotely plausible.
The Chancellor, who had all the authority of a polytechnic lecturer delivering a lecture on computer science, could not even bring himself to admit the country was in a recession. When you build your case on shaky foundations it is not surprising the rest of the construction looked dangerously rickety.
The real state of the economy, as opposed to the fantasy version peddled by Pollyanna Hunt, is unremittingly grim. The tax burden is still on course to be the highest since 1948. This will be only Parliament on record in which living standards have fallen. By 2028 3.7million more people will be dragged into paying tax.
Even the much-vaunted cut to National Insurance is not what it seems. When you take other Budget measures into account, someone earning £15,000 a year will be £48 worse off every month while someone on £50,000 will be £68 better off per month.
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In a reminder this is an election year, Hunt paid more attention to scoring points off Labour than speaking to the public. He repeatedly claimed Labour did not have a plan which was a curious allegation to make when he had blatantly stolen the opposition’s plan to abolish non dom status.
The Chancellor makes an unlikely attack dog. He has none of the heft of natural bruisers such as Denis Healey, Ken Clarke or Gordon Brown which meant his mild-mannered attempts to duff up the opposition was as implausible as using a soft toy to guard the gates of hell.
Hunt is gambling that voters will swallow the sugar-rush of tax cuts and ignore the bitter taste of further public spending cuts which are being used to fund them. He’s about to discover there is no point trying to bribe people with chocolate money when they want the hard currency of a stable government that will fix public services and restore the country to prosperity.