Next week’s Budget could be the government – and Philip Hammond’s – last chance to snatch the political momentum away from Labour. So what should he announce? Today’s newspaper editorials have some advice for the Chancellor:
Not too long ago, John McDonnell’s ‘alternative budget’ would have been announced ‘in complete obscurity’, says the Daily Telegraph. Not so now, and the Tories clearly need ‘big ideas’ to see off a resurgent Labour party. This should not mean they resort to borrowing the party’s ‘Left-wing solutions’ – or, indeed, trying to outspend Labour, however. But they cannot rest on their laurels. On housing, for instance, Hammond must ‘do far more’. Scrapping stamp duty altogether would be one such move that would shake-up the housing market, helping young buyers in particular. ‘A general approach of cutting taxes across the board, financed by spending restraint, would assist everyone by spurring growth’. As the last election showed, promising to be ‘strong and stable’ won’t cut it for the Tories; instead, Hammond needs a ‘plan to raise the standard of living’.
Hammond is likely to take to his feet at the despatch box next week and tell us ‘there is no money’, says the Sun. Hospitals and schools must continue to make do and ‘limp on’, he might say. Yet there is one department that will still not feel the pinch: foreign aid. Well, ‘we don’t have that money either’, says the Sun, which says the department’s new minister, Penny Mordaunt, needs to wise up to where some of the cash is really being spent. It’s right to feel proud of educating Syrian kids or ‘feeding Burmese refugees’. Can the same be said for the cash splashed on ‘Chinese eco projects’ though? The Sun is not convinced, delivering a stark warning: ‘Foreign aid, as it stands, does not enjoy the public’s trust’. It’s time for a change.
The Chancellor will be ‘acutely aware’ this Budget could be his last, says the Guardian. Philip Hammond remains an ‘isolated figure’ and is arguably only ’in place because his boss seems weaker than he is’. He has faced much opposition for his stance on Brexit, which the Guardian says is a ’reasonable attempt to stave off a hasty, chaotic Brexit’. He is also ‘lonely’ in resisting ‘the retreat from a programme of damaging and unnecessary fiscal austerity’, the paper says. But on this, according to the Guardian, he is being ‘unreasonable’. ‘The public is fed up with seven years of cheese-paring’. Now, it’s time for a change. This should take the form of a Keynesian solution, involving the government borrowing more now in order to invest, argues the paper. If Hammond and the Tories want to see off Labour, the Chancellor ‘should lift his gaze from his spreadsheets and loosen fiscal policy now’. Of course, in doing so it might be tricky not to admit austerity ‘was a mistake’. But this doesn’t change the fact that when times change it is vital to ‘change your mind’.
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