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.
Reply We have a low percentage thanks to many years in the EU. They worked hard to design laws and taxes which bashed our businesses and fuelled French and German exports to us. The most absurd view of pro EU people is the idea that exports to the EU is the main way to growth when our goods exports to the EU are a small part of our economy because EU customers do not want to buy more of our goods.
September 8, 2026
The problem with the Uk economy is that it is too expensive to compete with many other Countries in the World.
We appear to be a bit better when just providing financial services or consultancy.
September 8, 2026
The speech was indeed boring. It just emphasises that the government has no idea. We are heading for turbulent waters. It was ironic that JLR announced the loss of 4000 jobs brought about largely because of this and previous governments net zero obsession.
Next Nissan and Stellantis will be laying off. I’ve just bought a new Hybrid and the deal was unbelievable. People are obviously voting with their feet.
The only growth is immigration which is bankrupting the country.
Still no explanation how tents, clothing, lighting generators and riot police happened to be on hand for the so called rescue from 80 miles out. Plus the fleet of busses magically appearing.
There’s lots of questions need answering.
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.
September 8, 2026
Afraid we have had poor Chancellors for decades, few have much/any experience of such a position of big finance, and most do not have a clue about human nature/behaviour.
All they want to do is take, take, take from the productive or prudent members of our society, and give it to many of the feckless and work shy, that or to fund big vanity projects.
thus we now have the growing “no point in bothering attitude” as those with drive and ambition see themselves being constantly legally robbed with ever more taxation and regulation.
September 8, 2026
The new Chancellor will be cheered at August’s figures for new car registrations. The official figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) show that the UK new car market grew by 13.7% in August 2026, reaching 94,236 total registrations. This marks the ninth consecutive month of market growth and represents the strongest August performance since the biannual number plate change system was introduced in 2001
Electrified powertrains drove the market expansion, with petrol dropping to an all-time low monthly share. Private registrations saw the strongest jump, surging 19.0% to hit 38,448 units, taking a 40.8% market share. Fleet registrations remained the largest market sector, rising 10.1% to achieve a 57.2% market share.
Petrol: 36,048 units
Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV): 28,063 units
Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV): 13,707 units
Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV): 11,940 units
Diesel: 4,478 units
The combined electrified market share reached 57.0% of all sales for the month. Most of these vehicles were imported, as after Sunak tinkered with the timetable for the introduction of EV’s to the British market; (this change was opposed by the SMMT) Nissan then stopped production of their popular Leaf EV in the N East, BMW moved production of their electric Mini to Germany. Honda shut their Swindon plant completely, Stellantis stopped developing their electric van at Ellesmere Port and Aston Martin gave up on EV’s altogether. This deluded political decision cost us factory closures and the loss of thousands of well paid manufacturing jobs in a crucial high-tech industry.
Reply Nonsense that delaying the end of petrol and diesel cars caused harm. The harm leading to factory closures comes from the EU/UK net zero policies, designed to force people to buy cheaper Chinese battery cars. China now has 4 of the top 10 selling cars thanks to this self harm.