It’s been a strange old month. Not just politically or economically……I have come to the bizarre conclusion that I live in a world that is stuck in an oxymoron void.
It all started with a conversation where I was informed that “we do it every year now as it’s a new tradition.” Eh? It’s either ‘new’ or it’s a ‘tradition’……it can’t be both surely? Then barely 5 minutes later I was told that I needed to provide an ‘original copy’. I get that I am an easily confused man but this completely threw me……for days. Literally.
But here’s the thing……the contradictions are everywhere and I can’t escape them. The radio played a ‘live recording’……the film I watched was an ‘authentic reproduction’……the news reported a ‘partial ceasefire’……the advert offered a ‘limited lifetime guarantee’……the documentary discussed a ‘dry lake’.
The problem is when your radar notices oxymorons and it impacts your every movement in life because ‘almost everything’ is described in contradiction. I am literally a walking ball of confusion. How am I supposed to interpret ‘plastic glasses’, ‘true replica’, ‘uninvited guest’, ‘open secret’, ‘friendly fire’, ‘deafening silence’, ‘accurate estimate’, ‘final draft’, ‘good grief’, ‘small crowd’……I’m surrounded by them.
Stop it. Stop it now. I definitely maybe can’t cope.
The Numbers
March is always an interesting month in my world given all the excitement that comes with the Budget (I know……I need to get out a little more!). Rishi and Jezza seem to be displaying the most worrying of traits if you’re Labour……competence. There was no boom and bust promises……just more vanilla politics and reasonably sensible budgeting.
- UK will avoid a technical recession this year but the economy will contract by 0.2% and then grow by 1.8% in 2024.
- The Office for Budget Responsibility is predicting inflation to fall to 2.9% by the end of 2023 (despite increasing to 10.4% this month).
- The energy price guarantee will remain at £2,500 (on average) for the next three months. This measure will save the average family a further £160 on top of existing energy support measures. By the end of June, households will have received £1,500 in support since October 2022.
- The 5p cut in petrol / diesel duty is extended for a further 12 months. That will save the average driver £100 over the next year at a cost to the Government of around £6 billion. Exactly what will environmental campaigners make of this!
- 12 new ‘Investment Zones’ are to be established including Teesside.
- Corporation Tax for businesses is to increase from 19% to 25%, as planned. Firms which make a profit of more than £250,000 will pay 25% tax on their profits from April. Jezza predicts only 10% of companies will pay the full 25% rate.
- In a bid to get over 55’s back to work, a couple of radical (well, by pension standards) changes on pensions were announced. The pensions annual tax free allowance will increase from £40,000 to £60,000. And he abolished the maximum lifetime tax allowance. Wow……this is a huge middle class bung in preparation for the General Election next year!
And that was about it from the Budget. It didn’t stop the press getting excited on the subject of tax cuts for the wealthy though. Reforming pensions was to encourage highly-skilled workers, such as senior NHS doctors, to remain in the labour market and help to tackle NHS waiting lists. Jezza said this would stop over 80% of NHS doctors from receiving a tax charge. The reality though……NHS doctors account for only 40% of the benefactors of such a tax change!
The Bank of England jumped on the back of the “no recession this year” message to announce it was "much more hopeful" for the UK economy……and then promptly put up interest rates again from 4.0% to 4.25%, their highest level for 14 years.
Rishi joined in the back slapping also to announce "confidence is returning" after official figures showed the economy grew by more than expected.
Despite the economy being slightly better than expected, investment markets were slapped about from the latest banking wobble. Silicon Valley Bank in California needed rescuing and before you could say “here we go again”, Credit Suisse borrowed £44 billion from the Swiss central bank to stem its crisis before being bought by UBS.
Silicon Valley Bank had a big wealth management team providing advice to tech entrepreneurs. Credit Suisse had a huge wealth management division providing advice to high net worth families. Both have completely mismanaged their own finances. You couldn’t make it up!
Rishi did his best to bury his news this month (on the day that BoJo was cross-examined on Partygate issues) that he paid more than £1 million in UK tax over the last three years on earnings of £4.7 million.
March 2023 also saw Comic Relief do what Comic Relief does so well for the past 35 years……raising another £34 million.
Trump of the Month
There were a number of worthy candidates for Trump of the Month and my cap is tipped in a few directions for efforts to buffoonery.
Firstly, to Jezza. The pension reforms are expected to cost the Treasury £3.84 billion and the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that it will increase employment by about 15,000 by 2028. That’s a cost of £256,000 per job! Absolute lunacy on every level.
Secondly, to Rishi. On the back of the Northern Ireland Brexit agreement, Rishi told all that Northern Ireland is “the world’s most exciting economic zone" because of “access to both UK and EU markets” and was in a "very special position" making it an “incredibly attractive” place to invest. This, of course, is the status the whole of the UK had before Brexit. All delivered by Rishi without a hint of irony. Utterly gormless.
Thirdly, to Matt Hancock. Hancock’s ghost writer for his Pandemic Diaries memoir (Isabel Oakeshott) shared Matty’s private WhatsApp messages with The Daily Telegraph. More than 100,000 messages were in the leak, which did plenty to add to the weight of incompetence for his handling of the pandemic. Amazingly, Hancock’s response to the leak was……to send Oakeshott another private message saying she’d made “a big mistake”! And you guessed it…..Oakeshott then leaked it. You couldn’t script it!
All very worthy candidates and all should be recognised for stupidity. However, this month’s Trump of the Month had to go to……BoJo.
BoJo Johnson forwarded 100 names for a knighthood in his resignation honours list to be vetted by the Cabinet Office. Of particular interest in the list……Stanley Johnson……his father.
BoJo’s lack of shame, embarrassment or regret should be of no surprise given that he nominated his brother for a peerage in 2020 (he is now Lord Johnson of Marylebone).
A couple of thoughts on this……
Firstly, given that Stanley Johnson helped produce and raise BoJo, surely it’s not a knighthood he should be facing but a bill for damages.
Secondly, perhaps now might be the right time for the resignation honours list to be reformed from a reward to family, friends and donors to something that is more morally digestible.
Just a thought.
Trump Lunacy Rating: 10 / 10
And Finally……
"The most important human endeavour is the striving for morality in our actions."
Albert Einstein
No comments:
Post a Comment