Jeremy Hunt is the heir to Gordon Brown

Jeremy Hunt – known to broadcasters by a slightly different surname) – delivered his Autumn Statement today. He did so on behalf of ‘the British,’ he said. All the way through his speech, it was British this, British that. He vowed to ‘respond to an international crisis with British values,’ whatever that means. He talked of ‘a recession made in Russia but a recovery made in Britain.’ And he claimed, rather eerily, that ‘to be British is to be compassionate,’ as if this were a heritable quality conferred by evolution on one race alone. It sounded like jingoism fuelled by globalist arrogance. On and on he flannelled. ‘British innovation…British resilience…turning Britain into the world’s next Silicon Valley.’ 

Was this the Chancellor or a banking robot programmed to spout a consoling buzzword every 90 seconds? 

His performance centred on bad news, carefully disguised. He avoided saying ‘cuts’ and instead spoke of a ‘consolidation’ worth £55 billion. Put like that, it sounds quite cosy. His plan will lead to ‘a shallower recession’ and lower inflation, and he added the unverifiable claim that ‘70,000 jobs [will be] saved as a result of our decisions today.’ 

Spiralling inflation ensures that benefits must keep pace as well, and Hunt was keen to trumpet the happy tidings. He brayed that his increase to the state pension was the most generous in history. And he boasted about a record rise in the minimum wage as if it were an act of visionary benevolence. 

Hunt also complained that people with jobs aren’t working hard enough, and he wants 600,000 part-time employees to consult a ‘work coach’. These skilled consultants will pester their clients to increase their hours and to earn more cash. Much of that extra cash will, of course, go to the state to pay for the work coaches. Genius. Spirals of money circling fruitlessly to generate the mirage of ‘growth.’ 

He slipped in a word about electric cars which sounded modest and unobtrusive. ‘EV’s will no longer be exempt from vehicle duty,’ he said. This is momentous, of course. The start of a furtive campaign to fine eco-friendly drivers for being eco-friendly. Once imposed, such taxes will rise forever. Like hot air, up is the only way they can go.

What about HS2? The vanity project will continue to burrow its way to Birmingham at the speed of a caterpillar. But these choo-choo trains are fabulous news for London home-owners. Their assets will soar as the commuter belt spreads north. That’s HS2 – a giant electromagnet dragging business towards the South East. 

Two of his policies came from the New Labour playbook. Hunt praised elected mayors and their ‘inspirational’ entrepreneurship and he promised to impose them on Devon, Cornwall, Suffolk, and ‘an area in the North East.’ Can he be serious? This is John Prescott’s doomed brain-child, ‘regional assemblies,’ which voters across the North East rejected in the 2004 referendum. The result was 80 per cent against and 20 per cent in favour. So a policy thrown out by the electors is back. And this time it’s bigger. Hunt threatened to sign ‘trailblazing devolution deals’ with Greater Manchester and other regional centres. ‘Soon over half of England will be covered by devolution deals,’ he crowed. Just what we need. More part-time politicians squandering taxes, stifling growth and grinning for the cameras on local TV stations. 

He came to the 45p rate of income tax introduced by Gordon Brown in the dying months of his failed premiership. Hunt not only embraced this folly but lowered the threshold from £150,000 to £125,000. And why stop there? If the state spends our money more wisely than we do, let’s pay 45p on every pound we earn. 

He promised to pledge yet more cash for broken hospitals and for the struggling social care sector. And he floated an idea that Labour may well put in its manifesto. He said that adding VAT to private school fees would raise £1.7 billion. On the downside, he warned, an almighty exodus of 90,000 kids would start to move from the private sector and into the state system. Which is just what Labour wants. 

Take it from here, Sir Keir.