First of all, I add my voice to that of the Speaker and of his deputy, the Chairman of Ways and Means for this occasion, in condemning the wholesale publication in advance of the main points of the budget. This demeans parliament and chips away at the democratic process.
It seemed to me that this was a crossed-fingers budget. All the glossy spending promises will only be redeemed eighteen months hence. In the meantime, Sunak must hope that inflation, both home-grown and international, will subside and that no other unexpected shocks will hit the UK economy before 2023. Mel Stride, the chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, was not the only Tory MP to doubt that inflation and interest rate rises could be contained.
It appears that tax receipts have proved more buoyant than predicted. They have been enough to cancel the scheduled rises in fuel and beer duty, and to ease the pain for some people of the failure to consolidate the uplift in Universal Credit, but not enough to make the Chancellor change his mind about breaking the triple lock on state pensions.
Finally, I wondered why the Chancellor was so keen to give out solar panels. A quick search reveals that a company in which his wife and father-in-law have an interest produces a robot cleaner for them. I am sure that this is just a coincidence.
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