There have been many mini budgets over the last year. Never have the official figures for the outlook changed so drastically so rapidly, as forecasters rushed to bring their estimates in line with the big lurches in activity created by anti pandemic policies. Today we await new forecasts from the Office of Budget Responsibility. We should do so remembering that they like all forecasters were of course hopelessly wrong footed by the arrival of the virus. They will now find it difficult to gauge the pace of recovery and the sustainability of gr0wth against an uncertain health policy background and given the damage done to many businesses shut down by lockdown. In an economy where a 0.5% variation in growth was a big movement prior to CV 19 we have gone to a world where a 5% variation is modest.
The lack of clarity and reliability in the forecasts provides a good reason why this is not the budget to raise taxes to tackle the deficit, as the authorities have no reliable idea of what the underlying deficit will be once we are out of lockdown and into recovery. Some are suggesting there is a gap of £40bn or even £60bn that needs filling by tax rises. Yet the forecast budget deficit for 2020-21 is £400bn or ten times the alleged underlying gap. Let us assume this forecast was too high and the 2020-21 deficit comes in lower than that. Who can say what the 2021-22 deficit will be when we need to know how fast the recovery will be in 2021-2. What we do know – or should know – is the bulk of the deficit this year is the result of the pandemic. It comes from a collapse of tax revenues as many people and businesses are not at work earning wages and profits . There was ab ig fall in VAT on everything from eating out to travel. It comes from a huge surge in pandemic related spending on everything from furlough through the self employed scheme, small business loans to the train subsidies and vaccine costs. As soon as we get out of lockdown most of the extra costs of the pandemic will fall away, and there will be a surge of tax revenue.
What we can also say is that were the Treasury to impose new taxes and higher tax rates on the economy now, or even propose such changes for later this year, it will slow the recovery before it has properly begun. It will prolong the need for special measures spending, and lower the tax take. It will damage confidence at the very moment we need to encourage businesses back to work. Small businesses and the self employed include many who are approaching retirement who could decide not to bother to reopen. It includes people who were not earning a good sum prior to lockdown who might decide it was no longer worth the struggle. The brightest and most energetic will of course be able to reopen and succeed even with tax rises, but we need a more democratic small business and self employment policy that helps the many who provide a good local service but who are not going to be able to battle against heavy odds stacked against them by an overtaxing government.
March 3, 2021
Good morning
All we are hearing is tax rises. What we are not hearing, are cuts to non-essential spending. e.g. The Overseas Budget, HS2 and QUANGOS like the OBR. But that would entail upsetting all the ‘New Tories’ and their benefactors. Can’t be having that, so let’s squeeze the little man.
March 3, 2021
Agreed. QUANGOS spend about a fifth of government income. Not to mention the generous non-contributory index linked final salary pensions for the highly paid incumbents . We should scrap the lot and save the money – they are used to give jobs to the old boys and girls. Not too onerous work mind you, only one or two days a week
March 3, 2021
Too late. David Cameron has already had a ‘bonfire of the QUANGOs’. They are all gone.
March 3, 2021
Its the “little man” who are paying the ever increasing hotel bills for our replacements – who will be moved into the new housing estates – at our expense.
March 3, 2021
After the Johnson amnesty, quite obviously coming along as we have been totally free of the EU for over two months now and still nothing done about immigration. Sunak says today they are encouraging highly skilled immigration, but what about low skilled immigration by dinghy. Nothing. Nada. Sod all.
March 3, 2021
And it would appear Sunak intends to add to the overspend by extending furlough until September.
I understand the government to give away excess covid vaccines to 3rd world countries. Is this going to be taken out of the overseas budget they refuse to get rid of? By doing so, it would offset some of the overspend, but I suspect they won’t.
March 3, 2021
Might I add the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority and Equality and Human Rights Commission as quangos that could go?
March 3, 2021
Mark, as you say , government must be prepared to bite the unpalatable bullet. The bullet of covid consequences has already bitten the innocent and vulnerable, government now has a responsibility to remove all financial impediments, such as you outline, that act as drag on enterprise. If we are to travel to a successful outcome we cannot afford this excess baggage.
March 3, 2021
Well said. I find it unbelievable that an allegedly Conservative government should be so lax and indifferent towards the interests of taxpayers; so deeply in hock to big state solutions and so contemptuous of small business. My feelings with regard to the current PM and his administration are now no different from those I entertained with regard to Mrs May: disappointment, disbelief and alienation. I cannot imagine voting Conservative again.
March 3, 2021
Well said Percy. The only way I will vote Conservative again is if/when we are ever presented with a Conservative party to vote for. Not much chance of that. The last one was 1990.
March 3, 2021
The Tory Party are no longer conservative.
March 4, 2021
No, they are radical neoliberals and have been since Thatcher.
They don’t want to conserve anything much of value to the ordinary people of this country, I’d say.
March 3, 2021
Correct – its madness to continue with HS2 under the current fiscal position
March 3, 2021
the project and usefulness was mad in the first place.
March 3, 2021
I had no free magic money tree money, I have not had a holiday in four star hotel with free food and uk taxpayers’ pocket money and vaccination. I do not want to pay more taxes for Johnson’s stupidity and pandering to minority group thinking, including his latest attempt to include a ridiculous woke phrase pregnant people in legislation! Women get pregnant not men. The Lords had to change it.
March 3, 2021
I agree, the spending side of the Budget always escapes scrutiny.
If they didn’t waste so much they wouldn’t need to tax so much.
Many of the taxes are counterproductive and stifle economic activity.
March 3, 2021
Your direction of thought is undoubtedly correct. Look upon this pandemic created deficit and the one it was built on as a long term mortgage. A mortgage taken out to cover us for a defecit started by Labours Gordon Brown. Remember Mr Byrne’s note saying we were all spent up. All the austerity spending of the coalltion hoping th balance the books but failing, thanks to international crisis, all topped off by Covid 19. Now the defecit is what it is. Tweaking tax will not shift it because high tax kills enterprise. It is only private enterprise that will overcome this defecit.
So everything in this budget should be geared to increasing turnover not tax burden. There are two things this budget can do to help. First deal with the multinationals currently incorporated offshore to avoid tax, something those in the high street cannot compete with. Second deal with government vanity spending such as HS2, but not Defense the NHS or Education. Lastly consider a pension freeze for fhe back office public sector who have had a free ride during Covid..
No doubt we will have much to comment on tomorrow.
March 3, 2021
Indeed, raising tax rates from the currently hugely over taxed position will not raise more tax. It will damage the recovery, reduce the wealth creating sector, push people overseas, deter investment and hard work and raise less in taxation. Cut the vast volume of government waste instead. All those soft loans for usually worthless degrees, HS2, about half of the things government do (usually do very badly and often pointlessly), cut all the renewable energy lunacy, cut red tape, cut the green crap, simplify taxes (complexity is a tax on top of tax).
Encourage more private healthcare and education to save the state money.
But as we will see Sunak is essentially another dire Socialist. His first act was a 90% cut in entrepreneur’s relief and continued attack in the self employed. Even even insanely taxed people to buy richer people 50% of their restaurant to bills!
March 3, 2021
So you propose a selective pension penalty levied against workers whom you personally don’t like, in breach of their contracts, but not against, say, the military and security, presumably?
So how would the legality of that work, or don’t you care about the law?
You do realise that the top brass in private sector banking and finance generally have defined benefit pensions? (As do most ordinary folk across the Channel as it happens)
You right wingers really are suckers for the Politics Of Envy, aren’t you?
March 3, 2021
Whatever happened to the need for equality Martin?
Isn’t that usually a socialist, nay communist, objective. Right wing? really?
March 3, 2021
Whose business is it if the ‘top brass’ in private companies have defined benefit pensions. What I am concerned about is paying tax so that the people doing cushy jobs in ‘top brass’ positions in QUANGOs have defined benefit pensions when most people in this country have only got defined contribution pensions. Pensions which will be worth feck all in due course.
March 3, 2021
Like or dislike is not relevant. They do not have contracts with government, they have pensions that are in the hands of government. Those I have in mind are all the quango members and numerous none productive government employees whose well being has not been touched by covid, whereas most of the private sector have suffered. It could be their late contribution to the community.
The private sector would not be involved as contributors to the national wealth. It is their taxes that pay for the public sector, some of it productive, but most of it a burden.
It is not the politics of envy it is the politics of fair play.
March 3, 2021
Lifetime contributions tax (now with a frozen threshold) applied to public sector defined benefits pensions is not the politics of envy, it is the politics of equality Marty. As such I hope you support it.
March 3, 2021
JR says wrong footed by the virus! It was known in January at least China was building hospitals! Handcock made a speech in parliament 23/01/2020 which should see his resignation or sacking! The budget could have been delayed, there was much speculation it would be cancelled or delayed because of the virus, but it went ahead 11 days before lockdown! What thought was given to this alone? Nevertheless Johnson went on to spend like a drunk knowing how economically devastating closing the country would be!
March 3, 2021
Excellent Ideas!
March 3, 2021
With my staff working from home and I in the office for 4 hours a day our sales are in line with previous years. Corporation tax was paid in full in January and Vat will be paid in full today.Our bank balance is at a 20 Year high. In past years we pay ourselves a generous dividend. This will be deferred in case we run into a brick wall created by a disaster budget.
March 3, 2021
Bob you have indeed been in a fortunate position to be able to operate in the way you have with no detrimental effect. Budget apart, the question I would be asking in your position is, do I really need the office. Even if I had to have client and staff meetings I would be asking if renting a days space at a convenient hotel was a better answer than a dedicated office.
My eldest son advises on directional drilling operations around the world from his home and is asking the same questions, or what is the plus for him or the company in having an expensive facility in Aberdeen.
I wish you and your company well post budget.
March 3, 2021
I assume you are in one of the few lucky industries rather than travel, hospitality, leisure, jet engines, events, airport services, taxis, music festivals, sport ……
March 3, 2021
I’m guessing it’s the PPE business.
March 3, 2021
I doubt any of that will be on Rishi’s agenda. Just tax funded measures to try and delay the likely 2m extra unemployed in fear in the wings.
March 3, 2021
Sunak is clearly a fake Conservative his first act was to cut entrepreneurs tax relief by 90% and attack the self employed. He is clearly a deluded tax borrow and waste socialist. He has fallen for the moronic, v. expensive, unreliable, “renewable” energy lunacy too. PPE yet again – so no understanding of science, engineering, human nature, business, logic or real economics. We shall surely see this in three hours time.
The Conservative party are a party that always promises low taxation just before every election then rat on this and increase them hugely immediately after one. Alway jam tomorrow, but to tomorrow never comes. Tax borrow and piss down the drain con men in the main.
March 3, 2021
One of the many problems for most of us is the stored up debt. My landlords of the pub have been generous in their deferrals of rent, but this is not actually writing it off. The next two years will be pay back time and surviving and paying off this debt are about all we have to look forward to. Not all pub landlords have been this generous……
March 3, 2021
Tax influences behaviour – Chancellor’s use it to do this as well as pay for the state. It is obvious that tax rises will depress economic activity at the very time he needs to encourage it. Of course all this talk of tax rises might be a political ruse to deflect attention away from the out of control public spending. If Johnson cannot control the reported runaway spending on his Downing Street flat what hope is there for any semblance of control of state spending in its totality?
March 3, 2021
I don’t know how accurate the reporting is in MSM today, but at least one outlet is claiming Sunak is set to extend furlough until September! Why, if lockdown is supposed to being phased out and ended in June?
Do the different government departments not talk to each other, or is there some underhanded intention to find yet another excuse to keep the population under draconian control?
March 3, 2021
J Bush. I have asked this same question. Also I thought the £20 extra for Universal Credit was to help parents to feed their kids while they were home from school. They go back on Monday.
March 4, 2021
There should be no prior publishing of elements of the budget. The purdah has gone and we now have leaks. It was telling yesterday when Boris said to a Member he should wait a few minutes for the Chancellor’s budget, the Speaker said ‘ I think I have heard most of it’.
March 3, 2021
There needs to be tax rises this Budget – particularly on the elderly. Ken Clarke has this right – the vast majority of older people have had their incomes entirely protected during the Tory Covid crisis, indeed many have financially benefited from it. Younger people have taken nearly all the economic pain despite the fact that lockdown was enforced almost entirely to protect the old.
So the triple lock must be scrapped today. It is obscene giving extra handouts to the richest demographic in our country when poor young people get nothing. Moreover pensions must be made to match furlough – cut to 80% of their value and kept that way for 18 months. But how will we survive say the well off old – it is time they experience the same struggle the young have had for the last year.
We need a windfall tax on Amazon and the supermarkets. They have profited massively out of Covid.
And we need to see clear plans in place to raise corporation tax and income tax when the time it right. Inheritance tax also needs to be raised significantly so today’s old pay for Covid. We just not pass the entire bill for this Tory crisis onto the next generation. They did not cause it. Boris Johnson did.
March 3, 2021
The deluded William Hague yesterday in the Telegraph.
“Time to cast aside the dangerous illusion that tax increases can wait
Just like Pitt in 1797, the Government needs to raise taxes to prove that its debt burden is sustainable.”
Sure William – and what was the tax burden relative to GDP in 1797? Perhaps 1/5 of what it is now! We are hugely over taxed already and suffer fairly dire public services despite this. The state sector and living off the backs of the productive in the main and delivering little of any value in return.
March 3, 2021
If you knew anything about history (that obviously as a brilliant ‘scientific mind’ you do not) you might have remembered that the first attempts at national accounting were not done before 1937 (for the years 1929-1935) and in the USA, and the first GNP figures were not published before 1942.
March 4, 2021
Hence my choice of words – “Perhaps 1/5 of what it is now!” is probably about right had the figures been done!
March 4, 2021
After years of checking on the French (and Dutch) and then being involved in various alliances to try to defeat them (plus problems in Ireland) I doubt very much that the weight of the State would have only been 20% of the overall ‘wealth’ of the country. As for the ‘income tax’ it was only introduced on 9 January 1799 at a rate of 1% for income below £60 and 10% for income above £200. It was repelled in 1802, then reinstalled in 1804 suppressed again after Waterloo in 1816, finally revived by Peel in 1842.
Anyway I cannot see how you can even compare Pitt’s taxes levied for the war effort against the French with present-day taxes the scope of which is much wider (education, health, police, justice, …).
March 3, 2021
The government will lose the next election if raise Vat. They need to make savings not cuts.
1.Stop the daily payment to the lords, only provide expenses.
2. Mp,s role needs to be modernised, its only a part time job requiring part time wages, they’ve had it to good for too long. Cut the wage by halve, this will be still too much for the part time job.
3. Mp,s pensions to be the same terms as nhs pension or other public sector.
The saving the government can make is endless
March 3, 2021
+ 1 Totally agree except that I’d go one further and make all public sector pensions subject to the markets the same as for those in the private sector who are required to guarantee the pensions for those in the public sector often much more generous than their own.
March 4, 2021
Indeed also the way the pensions pots are valued you can have a pension of double in a mainly state sector DB scheme before hitting the pension pot limit that Sunak has just attacked yet again.
March 3, 2021
Spot the pandemic year competition:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/adhocs/12735annualdeathsandmortalityrates1938to2020provisional
Incoming tax rises, hidden as usual. Politicians know nothing else. What a depressing future they are planning.
March 3, 2021
What is that link supposed to show?
March 3, 2021
Open download associated with request then click on table. Compare age-standardised mortality rates for each year. The death rates for 2020 are in line with previous years, there is no evidence of excess UK mortality.
March 4, 2021
I did. The average death over the years 2015-2019 is 532,077, there was 608,002 deaths in 2020. The increase in population between 2015 and 2020 is 3.35%, the increase in deaths is 14.26%.
So even deducting these 3.35% (which would be ridiculous as there is no reason that the increase in death would linearly follow the increase in population) the excess death in 2020 would be 10.91%.
Now with age-standardised mortality rates, 1043.5 in 2020, 963.2 averaged over 2015-2019, so an increase of 8.33%.
QED: You talk rubbish.
If you are as numerate when dealing with your tax return, I would love to be part of HMRC, you are the perfect example of a taxpayer likely to be ‘had’ by the tax office.
March 3, 2021
It would be interesting to see the average population age for each of those years.
Young immigration reducing the average age since 2003?
March 3, 2021
Sir John your first sentence is so true and thus it makes all the usual MSM pre and post Budget hyperbole even more pointless. All I’m asking for today is some perspective and no jerking knees, but I fear we’ll be hearing the polar opposite. The 6pm Budget score board: Political Ideology 3 – 0 Common Sense…
March 3, 2021
My score card was way out, Political Ideology 7 – 0 Common Sense.
Even the promise on Freeports seemed vague, whilst the reported rise in the contact-less payment limit is dangerous, both for fraud and for hard cash.
March 4, 2021
The promise on Freeports is indeed extremely vague. Even within the EU, the UK had freeports till 2012. Then the UK decided not to renew them, as the EU definition of a Freeport has/had been much more restrictive than what is being done in those in other parts of the world.
So without a clear definition of what the new generation of UK Freeports will be able to do, in addition of what the EU permitted, yesterday’s announcement will remain rather fuzzy.
Maybe Sir John could ask the Government what the new Freeports will be able to do better than the old ones.
March 5, 2021
@hefner; Also questions need to be asked if a similar end, at vastly reduced coast, could not be found simply by changing HMRC rules, it’s not as if Customs & Excise sealed containers and bonded warehousing doesn’t (or hasn’t) already exist without Freeports.
I fear these new Freeports will end up being nothing more than a Cabinet level catchphrase and photo op, an excuse for Senior Minsters to put on their hard hat, hi-vis jacket and go stand on a brown-field site or existing dockside whilst trying to look as if the govt is actually doing something..
March 3, 2021
The crux of what you write above is that we need to come out of this heavy handed lockdown. The middle classes are enjoying this too much and providing support to keep the shut down going.
Your Chancellor should not be making any big decisions today, There is far too much uncertainty, extend the support required to keep those who can’t work fed and keep the economy ticking over. Certainly no tax rises to affect our futures.
March 3, 2021
The comfortable middle classes needs to leave their homes, realize how lucky they have been in the past year to lie in, go to work, make their kids’ meals and save more than they could possibly have imagined. Those who are now saying how their work/life balance has improved so much and they don’t want to go back to working in the office full time should instead be asking themselves if two people working in each household is actually the way forward. One breadwinner (male or female) and one housekeep / part timer or volunteer would change the whole work / life dynamic and reduce house and living cost inflation. Two people working in households has not made most people’s lives more financially comfortable it has just allowed them to keep apace. If it stops a single earner can keep apace.
March 3, 2021
@NS; Many people see no reason to return to the office as it existed pre 2020, not just the employee but the tenant employer too, and this feeling will increase after the schools return I suspect, the only group desperate to see a return en-masse are the owner-landlords -understandably!
Nor is it changed lifestyle choices that forces so many families to have two full-time incomes but the high cost of housing these days, 40 plus years ago many people/families had all the (relative to era) mod-cons, colour TV, modern kitchens, the foreign holiday, many by 1979 were running two cars [1], even managing to pass on something to their (grand)children, either as living gifts or a cash sum via a savings account. Doing all this on just one full-time income plus perhaps a part-time second income or plentiful paid over-time. So what’s changed, other than the lack of affordable for-rent or for-purchase housing?
[1] assuming they felt, or had, the need to own a car at all, what with the then cheap and adequate regulated public transport system
March 4, 2021
Nor is it changed lifestyle choices that forces so many families to have two full-time incomes but the high cost of housing these days,
Cause or effect @jerry
Many people see no reason to return to the office as it existed pre 2020, not just the employee but the tenant employer too
I am afraid that I mostly agree with Goldman Sachs on this one – a hybrid of two days at home three days in the office for jobs where it suits but you can’t beat the collaboration and learning of actually being together.
Those “most people” will have room to work I suspect and are not living in bedsits. – Middle classes.
March 4, 2021
@NS; “but you can’t beat the collaboration and learning of actually being together.”
Such collaboration has existed for years online (formally and informally, even pre the WWW), entire projects have existed were non of the participants ever meet in person, and often being more productive because along with office-place collaboration comes office-place distractions or fatigue.
“Those “most people” will have room to work I suspect and are not living in bedsits.”
Those currently in bedsits reinforces my point about the lack of decent affordable housing, but let’s assume decent housing is available, just unaffordable as of Dec. 2019, with more money being saved since March 2020 due to not having to commute (never mind buying over priced designer coffee and buns from the workplace concession…) such people are perhaps more likely to be able to afford a better standard of living, or at least a better a work/life balance.
March 3, 2021
A budget to keep people compliant and supportive of incarceration.
To keep house prices sky high and entrap youngsters in appalling financial trickery.
A budget to further destroy the economy.
Even the steeliness heart, the coldest, most cruel soul must surely remember the traditional Budget Day? And weep…just a little?
We now only follow IMF orders.
March 3, 2021
Thanks iPad!
*Steeliest
March 3, 2021
I received my 2021/2022 tax code notification from HMRC informing me that my tax free allowance has gone up £70.00 a year. However, my tax free amount has dropped. This means I will be paying more tax in the next financial year than I am in the current, although the only income change will be a modest rise in my State pension.
I know Sunak is under pressure not to raise to IT more than .20p in the £, but this looks to me like a deviant way of taking more IT from Joe Public, including those on low incomes anyway, whilst insidiously claiming to Parliament he will not raise IT.
March 3, 2021
What is the difference between ‘tax free allowance’ and ‘tax free amount’?
March 3, 2021
Tax free allowance is what you can earn before tax. Last year it was £12,500.
Tax free amount relates to how much you earn and the difference between that and the tax free allowance above and is mirrored in your tax code. e.g. if your tax code is 200L, you can earn £2,000 before being taxed. If your income doesn’t change the following year, but your tax code drops to 100L then you can only earn £1,000 before being taxed. Which means you are taxed on that other £1,000 and therefore £200 worse off because HMRC has taken that off you. Sneaky back door way to grab more income tax, whilst not raising income tax more than the current .20p in the £1.00 of taxable income.
March 3, 2021
the allowance is the £12,570 that everyone gets before they earn £100K.
the amount is after adjustments for in kind benefits, child benefit, pension allowance, repayment of back taxes that are declared on a P11D or tax return.
March 3, 2021
The Budget should begin with The Speaker reprimanding the Chancellor because budget announcements should be revealed in the chamber of the House of Commons first and not in the media days in advance. Disgraceful conduct and would have resulted in dismissal or resignation previously.
March 3, 2021
arrange the leaks, soften the blows, prepare for bad news day!
March 3, 2021
not a democractic way to run a government
March 4, 2021
Since when were UK governments run in a “democratic” way?
Under the UK’s Alice-In-Wonderland constitution we pretty well have elected – often by a minority of voters like this time – dictatorships, except with hung parliaments.
March 4, 2021
glen – you want democracy? – — you are such an old-fashioned idealist. Get with the program !
March 3, 2021
For those who have not qualified for any support so far, for goodness sake give them a 6 month (at least) mortgage holiday, it is after all only a postponement of payment on which current interest is charged, so no cost to the mortgage lender or the government. aware it does have a small negative cash flow on banks and building society’s but surely that is better than forcing people to leave homes when none of it has been their fault, but a government directive that they cannot work..
March 3, 2021
Those that have not got support probably don’t have a mortgage – but rent needs paying regardless.
March 3, 2021
We look likely to get a raft of initiatives that sound nice but will do little real good. The problems that led us into Brexit are still there, Brexit has not improved anything. Covid is hiding big structural changes that mean a lot less income for HMG. We don’t need town centre shops and we don’t really need many offices and we don’t need many employees. A great many people will be out of work for a long time.
Rishi’s hands are tied, he can do nothing but continue to splash the cash at least until the Autumn. On any feasible tax scenario receipts will be well down and the need for public spending high and growing. By January the next election will only be two years out. This will be an election best to lose but Labour is ahead of you in that game, the Tories are lumbered with a likely win come 2024.
But still nothing will have changed, attracting new industry will be very hard if not impossible. Every other nation will be playing the same game. The overall trajectory will not have changed from pre-Brexit times and we will have wasted more than six years on policies that cannot work. Sooner or later you will be forced into a BIG retrenchement.
March 3, 2021
This budget has got to bring in a feel good factor or better still a mini wow factor. Reducing taxes on some of the more high wish products to encourage the public to go out and buy. Make these products come under one umbrella: manufactured or assembled in the UK and only available on the high street. Get the peoples mindset changed to actively get out and get shopping again.
Then the Chancellor can get behind the constant concerns about government waste. HS2, Foreign aid, quangos, renewable and EV subsidies the list is endless if the man wants to really make things happen.
March 3, 2021
Spot on turboterrier – half measures don’t achieve anything
March 3, 2021
Something that would really help is certainty of restrictive measures – If we know for sure the lock-downs are going to end we can plan better….
…but with all of the experts jumping up and saying things like “Need to wear 3 masks” or “Masks should be worn when jogging” – How does anybody know where they are?
The government should really start winding down the NHS and associated adverts – That would save a fortune — THE PEOPLE HAVE GOT IT FGS – They have the message. Repeating more of the same is going to make a lot more a lot more neurotic …. Or is that the purpose?
Please – Let’s stop the constant propaganda on the virus. It’s long since achieved it’s purpose, and yes, a whole group of the population is scared witless.
If taxes are raised (unfairly), without HS2 being scrapped, then we will know the Chancellor is not serious about balancing the books and is just continuing the effort to punish the middle class.
March 4, 2021
It is tough being middle-class not being able to visit posh car showrooms to buy new cars, round the world cruises cancelled, few flights to exotic locations and scare stories of quarantine. Even doubts about Rishi paying enough to keep your businesses floating. Tough times, eh?
At least the mask wearing, home prisoned unemployed don’t make much fuss, while screen games generation might get back to education for a few weeks before sent home for isolation yet again.
March 3, 2021
It is a tightrope Sir John, to guess the dividing line between how quickly VAT and other taxes return and the rate at which support can be reduced. Both are dependant on how quickly we quell the virus and get back to a degree of normality.
We haven’t yet got to the beginning of the Road-map and the Treasury have to set a course, but I am confident that we will not get any tax rises today but they will be on the horizon. I just hope we are spared the nausea of all those clever s–s with 20:20 hindsight that the media dig up, clamouring for more government spending and spreading doom and gloom in general.
We might get a cherry on top today if, after ‘clever-clogs’ north of the border has had her day in the inquiry, has to step down or be pushed by a vote of no confidence.
March 3, 2021
Agreed ; but the fiscal squeeze we need soon, will be even more difficult without political preparation. You can’t skid sideways to a halt in an oil tanker. It galls somewhat, that the Government will use the pandemic to cover Brexit but there are no good choices. On a menu worthy of an “I`m a celebrity …” challenge, ( bull’s testes anyone ?) keeping the taps on is the least dreadful option. For Sir John Redwood it is the only option until, Brexit cannot be seen in the rear mirror. Nonetheless the stopped clock has the time right on this one.
March 3, 2021
Budget day show piece statements have become a joke. By one measure, the number of Debt Management Office revisions to its Remit, we have had seven budgets. Have a look at Appendix A in https://dmo.gov.uk/media/17127/pr251120-remit-revision.pdf
The Office for Budget Responsibility is irrelevant, it is serving no useful purpose. Similarly other Quango that are based on the myth that the Treasury has to borrow its own fiat monopoly money before it can spend its own fiat monopoly money. We should stop calling it the national debt and start calling it the national savings, because that is what it is to the penny.
The number one need is to turn national savings into national spending by any means possible. The Pound’s Monetary Base is currently at £863 billion. That is £92 billion in notes and coins and £771 billion in “reserves”, the name for government spending via the central bank. Each Pound in that base, on average, is getting spent just over twice a year. Back before the 2008 crash, it was getting spent twice a month.
There is no need for any tax rises this year at least, the deficit is not a problem. The Treasury is never going to run out of Pounds. Covid has highlighted the taxes that are not doing what they are meant to do.
March 3, 2021
Why are furlough payments being extended until September when Johnson said he would be led by the data not dates but gave 21 June as date when all legal limits on social contact would be removed? Can’t you see through the pack of lies we are continually being told?
Remember the days when leaking budget details before the event meant resignation?
March 3, 2021
It really is time Sir John that you submit your interest in the leadership of the party….your country needs you
March 3, 2021
Glen Cullen
Totally correct Glen it is time for these inexperienced, firing from the hip, young on the back of a fag packet chancers to stand aside and get a war cabinet together with the qualification of life experiences and proven track records to take the helm and come up with a vision that we can actually believe and identify with. The present situation is as close to being put on a war footing in order to survive as we will get without pick up the weapons to fight. As it is, we the public tax paying majority just don’t believe the present leadership and the appointed team. Not any more time for needs to improve time for a complete change and it has to start at the top.
March 3, 2021
He’s tried before.
Do you remember what happened, and what the accepted analysis of that was?
March 3, 2021
My analysis, probably not yours, was that numerous of his fellow MPs were a bunch of fools.
March 3, 2021
The brightest and most energetic will of course be able to reopen
I would suggest that being open is key to recovering and growing supply and hence avoiding inflationary pressure without having to tax money out of the system.
Whilst Conservative MP’s have continued to support the Coronavirus Act 2020 and have left Johnson, Sunak et al in place then there can be zero confidence of smaller entrepreneurs in the future. The highly likely risk of continued / easily returned draconian rule remains. Recovery, rebalancing and equity cannot occur.
For confidence it is essential that the Coronavirus Act is booted, and not given another 6 months to run – this signal needs to be clear and it needs to be now. The booting out of Johnson and his inner circle needs to swiftly follow, they constitute the biggest threat to recovery; this needs to be recognised, admitted and acted upon. Obviously a Conservative leader from one of the handful of sceptics – how standing against authoritarian rule is a sceptical position I don’t know – that have stood against this terrifying period of dictatorship would be a real signal of moving to recovery. Quibbling about policies is a distraction from the issue, the issue is individual freedom.
March 3, 2021
Why is the stupidly named “furlough” aka bribery continuing until September?
Going back on the new “ road map” already?
Surely not.
How this government squanders our years.
And as for this ridiculous vaccine. Do they want us to get it or not? Appts are as elusive as moonbeams. Vanishing in seconds. Dr refuses contact. WAIT YOUR TURN!
When will every pharmacy offer it? Oh no…they are following the edict of “roll out”FAIRNESS!! Yuk! Supply of vaccine here been given away!!!
God Almighty…could they run a p******** in a brewery? Oh …no booze!
March 3, 2021
Do you never stop shrieking?
About 40% of those waiting have been vaccinated here in Wales, and the rest of the UK is not far behind.
March 3, 2021
Do you ever actually read a comment?
March 4, 2021
so those in Wales are older or more vulnerable than the rest of the UK? Reading your contributions for what seems like years I can believe it.
March 3, 2021
Seems to me the pandemic is being used as an excuse to raise taxes on the ordinary working people in this country. Let people get back on their feet before taking even more away from them. We should now be looking to open up the economy not extending furlough yet again. You Conservatives have lost the plot.
March 3, 2021
exactly right. Encourage work via business opportunity not taxing the scraps left after the last year of disaster.
March 3, 2021
On Sky News last night, they showed the plot of government debt repayments as % GDP over time. Despite the huge debt, the actual repayments are at their lowest (as % GDP) since the 1700’s. It’s in single figures.
March 3, 2021
Why did we have to have austerity in 2010 and massive borrowing and spending in 2020? What a difference ten years makes.
March 3, 2021
So much talk about how the UK is going to pay for a virus, sent from outside its borders.
Yet, so little talk about reparations, driven by a determined, international coalition of nations.
March 3, 2021
A little off topic Sir John but it seems that the government has a lot of money from the public by way of premium bond investment. Lots of people have the upper limit invested eg £50,000
Would the chancellor not raise a large sum if he raised this to £100,000?
Is there a reason that this cannot be done that I don’t know about?
Reply I guess they thought issuing gilts as cheaper and easier
March 3, 2021
Hands off my 3 * £25 today…..
March 4, 2021
Reply to reply.
Why can’t they do both?
Perhaps a suggestion you could forward?
March 3, 2021
Let me be very clear – freezing personal tax allowances is not fair and it is not progressive and it does not target the people who can best afford to pay for government profligacy.
Government is stealing our money’s value through inflation, it is stealing our future money through debt and it is now proposing to not compensate us for this in anyway by increasing the thresholds on how much more taken from our salaries at source through menaces.
I again urge all readers to read Daylight Robbery by Dominic Frisbee to enlighten us all that lower taxes and less regulation and government interference increases tax take.
I am so annoyed
March 3, 2021
Where is my extra £20 a week for hardship? Free school meals for my children worth £650 per child? To give me equality with “the deserving” my tax threshold should be raised by £11,700 to over £24K not frozen.
March 3, 2021
When will you Chancellor start taxing benefits? They get more than £12,570 per year surely that should be taxed as they are now “better able to pay” or is it only earned income that is taxable.
I really need to breathe
March 4, 2021
And the annoying thing is they write to me about my pension calling it a ‘benefit’. I wrote to the Treasury insisting they change this or give me back the tax I paid as benefits are not taxed. I heard not a peep from them let alone a defence of this demeaning expression.
March 4, 2021
I will that quip about the tax Graham, I had not made the connection
March 3, 2021
Sunak has disingenuously said he will not put up income tax but has introduced fiscal drag by freezing personal tax allowances. What does he think that is then? Council tax is going up by 5%. My council tax is now £3,000 a year, a huge chunk of my income even though we have no public transport, no pavements, no streetlights and low crime down here in South West Cornwall. What is this money for except a bonus for wasteful councils. At the same time, this out of touch ‘Conservative’ (??) Chancellor has just refused to make any cuts to public spending whilst insultingly bragging how much extra money he’s giving the devolved nations through the Barnett Formula and inner city deals. It seems this Government are only interested in bribing the devolved nations and the north of England. Nothing for the rural areas especially down here in the south. How out of touch your party are John.
One thing is for sure, this is not a Conservative Government. The sooner we are rid of them, the better.
March 3, 2021
Here’s an idea. Instead of constantly kowtowing to China, why don’t the world leaders present China with the virus bill. If they don’t pay up, we don’t buy their goods. We’ve made them the second if not the most wealthiest country on earth whilst they in return have virtually crippled us economically. If they get away so lightly with inflicting the China virus on the world then what’s to stop them doing it again.
March 3, 2021
So the world should present the HIV bill to Africa, the BSE bill to the UK, and the swine flu bill to the US, then?
March 3, 2021
What cost the pollution – ask Greta!
March 3, 2021
Congratulations to the Chancellor on a pleasing budget!
I confess I was becoming dismayed that having spent a considerable sum to ask the people’s Blue Boris to become a daily reader here (it was a postage stamp of the first class) I was not seeing the benefit but it seems the Government has pleasingly absorbed some of your ideas. The free ports and investment funds etc. must be driven through with all due gusto of course.
March 3, 2021
Once again, we were forced to listen to Blackford rabbiting on about how Scotland has been let down.
He seems to have been allowed to drone on for far longer than Starmer, leader of the Official Opposition.
Why is a party that only puts up candidates in far fewer than 10% of the seats in the House allowed such generous time to speak ? It is far too generous.
March 4, 2021
Why was Farage – whose party had no MPs at all – invited onto BBC QT 33 times, far more than any other politician?
March 3, 2021
The tax payer shouldn’t be on the hook for increased taxes to pay for this governments covid billion pound mistakes. Thorough investigations should be made , and those who were reckless with the tax payers money should face the law. If parliament were to blame in allowing this to happen , then means of clawing back some of this money should be made through ministers and MP’s salary and pensions. It’s not good enough for the poorest of people to pay for rich politicians mistakes . I voted for Boris, but expect the conservatives to be voted out come the next election, which would be a shame as I want the conservatives to own Brexit for at least 2 terms of government. If Labour does get in then they’ll work on becoming much more aligned with the EU again.
March 3, 2021
Well having just read the quick points of the 2020 Budget it seems the Chancellor has listened to business concerns and that is justifiably where the support should be plus extra infrastructure and Freeport investment.
These will rightly alarm the lethargic EU Brussels elite as laying down a marker that Britain intends to be unashamedly back itself in working its own way in the world in the 21st Century albeit 21 years late.
March 3, 2021
Well the Chancellor has set up the ‘tightrope’ and described how he plans to cross over on it. In two years time he will be halfway and if the 6% corporation tax rise is accepted, albeit reluctantly, he’ll cross the second half within a year. Let’s hope he does not get a nasty cross wind!!!!!
Who ever prepared Labour’s response either did it before they read the advanced copy of the speech or didn’t understand what they were reading!!
Listening to the inquiry in Scotland this morning and to the lengthy replies an age-old saying came to mind.
”If you tell the truth you don’t need a good memory.”
March 3, 2021
I wanted someone to ask ‘As you aren’t concerned that you don’t remember a private meeting in your home with your predecessor, no notes taken and no recording, does that make you unfit to be First Minister?’
March 3, 2021
J Bush. I have asked this same question. Also I thought the £20 extra for Universal Credit was to help parents to feed their kids while they were home from school. They go back on Monday.
March 4, 2021
There is no need for a net increase in taxation this year or any other year. Public expenditure is grossly excessive. The State is far too big and is a Ninny State as well as a Nanny State, with many decisions made for reasons for sloppy sentimentality. I have a list of desirable cuts as long as your arm. I will post a note to Sir John summarising all of them. We need to curb State expenditure because the private sector will need investment capital to expand export markets and enable import substitution. Current policies are starving it of that capital. And let us not forget that many State vanity projects will yield a zero return on capital.