The Chancellor underwhelmed as he stumbled through a tedious and uninformative speech. There was no attempt to tell us when defence spending will reach the target he wanted when Defence Secretary and no comment even on how to pay for the increase he inherits from Rachel Reeves. He tells us about a £4.7 bn new black hole where the revenue to pay the extra defence bills should be. There was a complete absence of ideas to cut or control spending. Tax rises were not ruled out. More spending and more borrowing look inevitable.
He says he will back innovation and growth, but fails to say how beyond a £150 m fund for smaller businesses in the North. This tiny sum is just 0.005% of the economy! He promises a 25 % cut in business regulations without any clue of which he will cut. It is a ludicrous over claim, probably copied from the laughable EU pledge to cut its rules by 25%. Instead this government is likely to sign a humiliating EU Re set deal signing UK businesses in a number of important sectors to a wide range of additional EU rules. This is fatuous as the 8% of UK businesses that do export to the EU already conform with their regs to sell into their market. The other 92% do not export so should not be lumbered with these needless extra costs.
He said he would deliver the findings of the Fingleton Review and “ extend those to other sectors, including launch of a review of the costs review of rail infrastructure”. Whatever does that nonsense mean?
September 8, 2026
You seem to have hit on what is wrong with the British economy when you assert only 8% of UK businesses export to the EU. As Europe is our nearest market it seems that we have plenty of room to grow.
September 8, 2026
he is not running the treasury, clearly others are
worse we have 5000 a year claiming asylum from India, many more from Pakistan, at this point it’s a joke world ruling class who have no concept of the division and anger they are stoking. they clearly have not war gamed this very well, as there are no successful possible outcomes.