And still there’s another 10 days to go. After 15 bumpy weeks, will this budget ever come? The nation remains in the back of chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Ford Mondeo, moaning: “Are we there yet?”
“No – not yet, have another Fruit-tella,” snaps Reeves.
“But when? And what’ll it be like when we get there? Will it be OK?”
“Just wait and see.”
But no one has ever liked wait and see – not for a holiday, not for tea and definitely not for the nation’s finances. It’s unclear why this budget couldn’t have happened sooner, as previous governments managed. Yes, there was all that “looking under the bonnet” they spoke of – but does it take almost four months to see the engine’s knackered?
Meanwhile, the interminable wait has given Reeves’ critics the luxury of time to pick holes in any of her potential plans. Cabinet colleagues Angela Rayner, Louise Haigh and Shabana Mahmood, who’ve glimpsed the roadmap over Reeves’ shoulder, are sufficiently worried about cuts to their departments that they last week wrote to the PM.
Elsewhere, it’s likely there will be an increase in national insurance contributions by employers, hikes to inheritance tax, capital gains tax on selling shares (but not second homes) and possibly an end to stamp duty discount. Fiscal rules will be rewritten, fuel duty could be up by 7p and tax changes made to pension pots.
But there may yet be surprises and so this budget remains the most anticipated event since the Sex and the City sequel – and we know how dire that turned out. Waiting has wobbled the stability so often promised pre-election. And yet, curiously, the business world largely remains more positive about our new government than the rest of the country. It seems less bothered by Taylor Swift shenanigans and more impressed by what it sees as genuine commitment to driving growth. Although of course what it would really like to see… is a budget.
“Are we there yet?”
Mothers’ Tory helper?
Sir Christopher Chope will be remembered in politics for blocking upskirting from being made a criminal offence. Or maybe for using the same tactic to stop a law to help protect girls from female genital mutilation. He claims he was making a point about parliamentary processes, rather than any particular issue on women. Either way, last week he was making a point about Tory leadership contender Kemi Badenoch. Chope said he wasn’t supporting Badenoch as she was “preoccupied with her own children”.
Last month, a largely overlooked survey showed that a quarter of mothers were forced to quit work to cope with childcare. A further quarter said they’d unwillingly reduced their hours. Just 7% of fathers quit and 8% reduced their hours.
The cost and availability of childcare, and lack of flexibility, still unfairly hits women and their careers. While I’m not saying these issues affect Badenoch (or her thinking), I can’t help wonder if Chope hasn’t finally helped women by inadvertently shining a spotlight on the double standards still entrenched in our country.
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Out with a bang
As I write this, my beautiful black labrador, Florence, is lying in the shower with the door closed. There’s an old duvet keeping out any strands of light. She’s been shaking constantly for an hour and no amount of calming words and steady stroking makes a difference. Because it is firework season. Although nowadays, when is it not firework season?
But not the pretty fountains of night-time sparkles I remember from childhood. Now they’re sonic-boom banging and crashing explosions that startle grown adults. No wonder they cause terror and sometimes long-lasting damage to dogs and cats with more sensitive hearing.
So MP Sarah Owen’s campaign to ban the loudest fireworks because of the stress they cause animals and those living with PTSD seems a thoroughly good idea to me.