November 2022 was quiet to the point of being muted. Not silent……just, well, quiet. Yes there was the noise of the Budget (where there were no winners) and the sounds of a gloomy Bank of England forecast……but it was a vanilla month of ‘normality’. No change in Prime Minister. A Chancellor that survived a second month. No financial crisis caused by a political whim. No investigation into the conduct of the latest tenant at Number 10. It seems the start of the new ‘vanilla’ norm.
Once in a lifetime events seem to have happened regularly and dominated our normal living. My daughter is 8 and so far she has lived through some huge events for us to deal with.
Brexit
Trump
Pandemic
School closures
War in Europe
Energy crisis
Record inflation
Record Heatwave
3 US Presidents
5 Prime Ministers (and counting)
Death of a Monarch
New King
The Liz Truss Experiment
My football team getting relegated twice
But November was quiet and I’m not sure I like it. Where do I vent my frustrations now? Who do I blame for a lack of eggs……my latest grocery shopping bill……the delay to my latest online order? I’m a little lost and have no obvious target.
Perhaps the biggest issue is that it gives my mind some free capacity to explore the frustratingly unimportant problems in day to day life. You know, those critical unimportant things that bug you to the point of frustration. My latest critical unimportant annoyance is our change of language:
When did haulage become logistics? Who signed that off? Probably the same person that allowed working in a bar to become hospitality and problems to became challenges. Who was given permission to change work mates to colleagues and Personnel to Human Resources? And while we’re at it……I was perfectly happy with Opal Fruits not Starburst and Marathon not Snickers. Who in their right mind changed drinking water to hydrating? And just for the record, it’s a shop not retail and a series is not a season.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!
The Numbers
I love this quote from Sam Ewing:
“Inflation is when you pay fifteen dollars for the ten-dollar haircut you used to get for five dollars when you had hair."
Which is a perfect backdrop for the Bank of England position this month in which higher interest rates and recession are inevitable until inflation subsides.
The Bank of England raised interest rates by 0.75%, the most in 33 years. Interest rates are now expected to rise from the current 3% today to 4.75% in coming months.
The really grim news is that the Bank of England expects the UK to be in recession until the middle of 2024. Dire……especially given the hopes for a post Covid bounce. In its outlook for the UK economy, it said the country would face a "very challenging" two year slump and unemployment will nearly double. The recession is expected to knock 2.9% off the size of the economy, which is less than half of the 6.3% that followed the financial crisis.
Until we realign ourselves to our biggest and closest trading partner, our economy will always suffer. You simply cannot pull up a draw bridge to the EU and expect to prosper.
The interest rate rise was an effort to combat inflation, which hit 11.1% (a 45 year high). A sustained increase of 1% in inflation and interest rates adds roughly £20 billion to the Government annual debt interest bill, according to the OBR. Its new projections for the Government’s debt interest payments make eye-watering reading and set the tone for the Budget.
It was never going to be a rosy Autumn Statement……and on that Jezzer truly delivered. The freeze on income tax thresholds will be extended to 5 years, effectively dragging millions more people into the higher-rate tax bracket (which started at £50,271).
There was plenty of grief for households in general. While the Government will extend its energy price guarantee from next April, it will be less generous. The average household bill will be £3,000 a year from April, which is almost 3 times what it was only 12 months ago and 20% more than we pay now. For context, it would rise to £4,245 without the subsidy.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, Jezzer also revealed that councils will be allowed to hike up their council tax by 5% without a local referendum.
So energy bills: up. Council tax: up. Mortgage rates: up. Tax bills: up.
This will hurt the vast majority. In fact, it will see the biggest fall in living standards since records began, with the tax burden set to hit the highest level since the Second World War. But we have one thing at least……certainty. We now know which policies are going to go ahead and where the axe will fall.
Tough times lie ahead, but we now know where the land lies and we know what we are playing with.
Trump of the Month
My goodness there were some pretty solid candidates for Trump of the Month in November 2022.
In any other month David Beckham would have been a shoe-in. What was he thinking becoming an ambassador to the Qatar World Cup? It can’t be the £10 million fee he received surely? Is he really that desperate? The Qatar World Cup is already looking pretty putrid if the death toll for migrant workers, the recent rape and jailing of a gay tourist and the appalling human-rights record weren’t enough.
It was a different story in September when David Beckham was a national treasure due to his remarkable feat of queueing up with non-famous people outside Westminster Hall to pay his respects to the Queen. How much nobility we saw in him — wearing a hat, standing on his legs, like a ‘normal’. Now, I wonder if Beckham just got into that line by accident while looking for a Costa.
And don’t get me started on Matt Hancock. It’s going to take a lot more than eating a sheep’s vagina for £400,000 for me to forgive bunking off work to fly 10,000 miles to appear on a fatuous reality TV show, the Covid-19 care homes scandal, the PPE shambles and being caught on camera breaking his own rules with an extra-marital affair. A lot more.
But this month’s winner of the Trump of the Month award is……Gavin Williamson.
He was a failed Defence Secretary who was widely mocked for saying during the fallout of the 2018 novichok attack in Salisbury that Russia “should go away and should shut up”. His suggestions to solve equipment shortages, such as fitting tractors with guns and arming Gibraltarians with paintball rifles, were met not so much with mockery but with weary bemusement. He was then shuffled off to the back benches.
He was then the Education Secretary when the Government struggled to deal with the effect of Covid on schools and in particular how to deal with pupils whose education was disrupted during exam years. U-turn followed u-turn and he was then shuffled off to the back benches leaving a trail of destruction.
After two huge political failures, he was nominated by BoJo for a knighthood (which he was awarded in March 2022). Yeah, good one Boris.
Williamson supported Rishi in his two attempts to become Conservative leader……and was awarded a Cabinet position as Minister of State without Portfolio as a reward. This month Williamson was pushed / resigned under much pressure due to allegations of him bullying over a number of years.
Gavin Williamson would be a worthy winner in any month. How he is even an MP let alone a Cabinet member is beyond me……he’s been sacked by three prime ministers.
Gross incompetence being rewarded time after time.
Trump Lunacy Rating: 10 / 10
And Finally……
“The older I get, the more I admire and crave competence — just simple competence — in any field, from adultery to zoology.”
Henry Louis Mencken
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