Boring is Safe
Love it or hate it, the budget is a big deal. Now, finally, only a few sleeps away, there’ll be more to it than the inevitable mind-numbing tsunami of numbers. It’ll also give a clue as to the new Andy Burnham-led regime’s direction of travel. And the Chancellor’s top priority will be to echo the Prime Minister’s message of hope – without frightening the horses.
Guy Fawkes night might be looming ever closer, but what John Healey’s particularly anxious to avoid is any suggestion of fireworks.
Yes, we can expect a bit of extra taxation here and there, notably on the banks. But one lead he definitely won’t be following is that of long past predecessor but near-namesake Denis Healey.
That man’s pledge, to squeeze property speculators ‘until the pips squeak’, was scarily memorable.
And right-wing newspapers have for weeks been threatening on the Treasury’s behalf all manner of tax ‘raids’, making them sound like little short of drive-by shootings.
But they’re woefully wide of the mark.
The last Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, may have become a bit of a hate figure, what with all those whopping tax rises she came up with, but the present one definitely isn’t going there.
No need, actually, as her efforts seem already to have done their work.
The International Monetary Fund says Britain is doing better than any of the world’s other seven most advanced economies in shaving off its borrowing.
That’s not to say it isn’t enormous, because it is.
The figures do nonetheless suggest that, thanks to Reeves, John Healey will have a little more wiggle room with his sums than might otherwise have been the case.
And he’ll need all the help he can get, given the real biggies coming his way.
For starters there’s the plan to set up an NHS-style national care service, and the project to rejig the system than leaves so many youngsters out of work, education or training.
Then there’s the huge uplift on military spending, the urgency of which is sharply underlined by last week’s doom-laden warning from the Defence Secretary about new threats we all face.
As well as supply chain disruptions caused by natural disasters, he cited cyber attacks by enemies. The head of the army chimed in with portentous words about a more dangerous world.
Deadly serious though this doubtless is, there could also be a spot of politics at play here. As it might help soften up voters who don’t really want to fork out for more battleships and things.
Overall though, John Healey’s idea of a steady-as-she-goes budget on Wednesday is only going to work if the nation manages to make itself a bit richer over the next few years.
But on this front he does seem to have something of a plan. While he’s steadfastly refused to go into details, he is promising to help businesses make an extra bob or two. Or ten.
The aim, he says, is to help those who: ‘Come up with innovative ideas and are trying, some of them through sheer bloody-mindedness, to keep going.’
He admits that some of the stuff the government’s slung their way, like increases in minimum wage and tougher employment laws, haven’t helped them one little bit.
But now, he says, the idea is to counteract all that with cuts to the annoying bureaucracy that prevents them from getting on with things. What his team calls: ‘The sludge choking firms.’
And it could be that’ll be coupled with the odd tax break for the guys who’re prepared to take risks to make serious money.
A big plus for the Treasury, of course, is that none of this comes with much of a price tag. Quite the reverse if it actually does end up with thriving businesses swelling the nation’s coffers.
For sure there’s an If built into that. But, as the saying goes, nothing ventured nothing gained.
Also, you have to hand it to Burham’s lot, they’re quite adept at spotting things that really make people mad. And doing something about them, again at no cost to themselves.
Ever driven into a privately-run car park, decided against stopping and driven out again, only to get threatened with court action if you don’t cough up loads of money? Face it, who hasn’t?
Or for that matter, accidentally keyed in slightly wrong info into the payment machine, and then got the same rotten treatment?
Well, the government’s now bent on cracking down on these pretty bent firms screwing innocent motorists.
How far they’ll get with it and how soon, remains to be seen. But it’s the sort of headline that earns them loads of brownie points. Same as shaving off a bit from lekky bills, and maybe gas too.
Certainly it can’t just be Andy’s sexy eyebrows that have caused the so-called Burnham bounce to stick. Which, thus far, it seems to have done.
The latest YouGov poll has put Labour four points in front of everyone else, way ahead of Nigel Farage and his Reform party.
A turnup there for the bookies, that, when you consider how comfortably in the lead he’d been for month after month.
This suggests that ongoing sleaze probes into him and his team are coming back to bite him. That on top of TV sting operations revealing racist and misogynistic attitudes on his side.
And just last week fresh allegations emerged linking his newest billionaire backer with the rather nasty Iranian government.
Also there are yet more questions raised about Farage’s chum, nicknamed ‘Posh George’, and his association with what’s being claimed is a dodgy gambling company.
None of which is any guarantee that things won’t turn sticky again for the government in coming months, not least because of a looming rebellion over newly tightened immigration controls.
The plan to make people live here for at least ten years before they can be allowed to stay permanently has enraged some in the cabinet – as well as about a hundred Labour MPs.
Their grouse is that this is a really unfair moving of the goalposts, as the new stipulation will also apply to folk who’re already here and who’d been told they’d only have to wait five years.
Stand by for a bare-knuckle battle and some seriously negative press. Unless the Home Secretary backs down. Which she says she won’t.
But for now Burnham’s helming a pretty happy ship. Although new research suggests his jolly manner isn’t the only way to put a smile on people’s faces.
A study published in the science monitoring outfit PLOS, that analysed data from ninety-three different countries, suggested another way of cheering yourself up. Just get a cat.
To quote its Mexico-based lead author: ‘At the national level, a greater density of cats was associated with greater subjective well-being.’
Against that, it emerged that if the dear little creatures are not well looked after they can carry a parasite that tends to make humans ever so grumpy.
From which the boffins concluded that if you have the good sense to seek out feline friends you’d better be nice to them.
Few people who’ve gone down that route would argue with that.
Comments