Captain Cautious is taking a big risk by gambling that a light hand on the tiller will steer HMS Britain safely through a global economic storm whipped up by deranged Donald Trump ’s never-ending Iran war.
John Healey’s steady-as-he-goes first Budget certainly isn’t without merit and £100 cheques for 20million households and cutting gas standing charges to lessen energy bill rises this winter will be gratefully accepted.
So too a minimum wage increase for 2.3million low paid workers with the 21 and over rate increasing up to £13.21 and exempting 70,000 shops, restaurants and gyms from business rates.
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But should the Chancellor have been braver, more radical, to walk the Prime Minister’s bold talk of reversing 40 years of impoverishing deregulation and privatisation from Thatcher onwards?
Temporarily doubling the 3% bank surcharge to only 6% was unambitious when only a few years back it was 8% under the Tories and the big four alone declared rocketing £29billion profits during the first six months of the year.
Oil and gas giants enjoying blood money windfalls from Putin and Trump’s military rampages will be laughing all the way to one of those banks.
And Healey largely tied his hands with a promise to leave Capital Gains Tax rates much lower than Income Tax while a Wealth Tax on the super-rich with more than £10m advocated by Patriotic Millionaires UK was never even on his Treasury table.
Fresh incentives for entrepreneurs and investing £20bn in the National Wealth Fund and British Business Bank may in fairness pay future dividends.
And there is a curious resilience in UK annual growth forecasts that while anaemic, and all are below 2%, were still uprated or maintained in four of the next five years and not bad by international standards.
Office for Budget Responsibility experts specifically identifying Brexit as a major drag on the British economy helps explain why the Prime Minister reopened the debate on our country’s relationship with the European Union.
Filling the Brexit black hole, quitting the EU a costly act of national self-harm rather than El Dorado moment, would be a big strategic fix – undoubtedly hard won if it ever happens – alongside the PM’s little everyday fixes and a financial prize worth winning.
Other difficult decisions await on welfare reform and defence spending, Healey and Burnham deliberately kicking those potentially explosive cans down the road until after the Budget.
The next election, whenever it comes and speculation continues over the early contest the PM repeatedly rules out in public, will be mainly won or lost on living standards and the cost of living.
Opposition parties, particularly Reform and the Conservatives, compete to offer phantom massive tax cuts that would be either fiction or require key public services to be slashed to the bone.
The unanswered question is whether Treasury skipper Healey did enough to reassure and convince reasonable folk to trust Labour to navigate them, their finances and the country through choppy waters.
An awful lot is riding on those headline-grabbing £100 payments.
