Politics

There was plenty of miserable economic news in this week’s Budget: the highest taxes imposed by any peacetime government, the worst post-pandemic recovery in the G7, the most painful cost-of-living squeeze since records began. But there was also a statistic which, on the face of it, seems to herald a remarkable success. The official unemployment rate stands at just 3.7 per cent – less than half the rate of a decade ago, as low as it has been in half a century. In his Budget, Jeremy Hunt boasted that ‘Conservatives believe that work is virtue’. Sadly, as this magazine revealed several months ago, there is rather more to the figures than

The paradox of Rishi Sunak’s premiership is that even though he became Prime Minister because of the economy, it’s the issue on which many of his party disagree with him the most. He resigned as chancellor not because of partygate but because his fiscal conservatism was ‘fundamentally too different’ to Boris Johnson’s stance on the economy – tax less, borrow more. He lost the leadership contest last summer after he played down the prospect of imminent tax cuts. MPs flocked to his rival Liz Truss and only when her experiment imploded was he asked to clean up the mess. Almost five months on, the Chancellor takes the view that the

Home Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, delivered what he called a ‘Budget for growth’. He abolished the cap on savings for tax-free pensions and promised help with childcare costs. The Office for Budget Responsibility forecast a fall in inflation to 2.9 cent by the end of 2023 and a fall in GDP of 0.2 per cent. Twelve regions for new investment zones were named. Corporation tax would rise to 25 per cent but for small businesses capital expenditure would be tax deductible. Nuclear power and quantum computing would be encouraged; back pain and mental health problems discouraged. The pothole fund would grow. Holyhead Breakwater would benefit. Duty on