Exolete

Appropriate to today's Autumn Statement is Anu Garg's word of the day: exolete.  It means stale, failed, obsolete, all adjectives one may apply to this government's economic thinking. For that matter, the Opposition's reply did not depart from orthodoxy much. 

Two familiar messages: growth is God and anyone claiming benefit rather than working is a scrounger. 

Chancellor Hunt promised many incentives to business, especially small business, some of which are welcome. But there is no point in encouraging businesses to take on workers if those workers cannot afford to travel. There was no suggestion in today's Statement that the cuts in bus subsidy are to be reversed. The increase in the minimum wage is hardly enough to provide an electric car, which will soon be de rigueur. And where is the incentive for the necessary fast recharging stations?

Sickness would be better tackled by restoring the NHS and public health systems to what they should be, as Rachel Reeves stated in her Opposition response, rather than forcing people to work in unsuitable conditions. For that reason, the unplanned rise in tax income due to inflation would be better ploughed back into the health service, staunching the flow out of the NHS in all the home countries. Chancellor Hunt made much of the increase in trained medics, but unless government stops the flight of experienced doctors and nurses to where facilities and pay are better, our health will continue to suffer.

Finally, he was right to criticise the two occasions when the health budget was cut in Wales. For some reason, he did not lay the blame on Plaid Cymru who were instrumental on both occasions.