It was another dull grey day and there was little to do but watch Rishi Sunak deliver his first budget to a full house at Westminster. He had leaked most of it in advance and was mildly rebuked by the Deputy Speaker for failing to observe the protocol that the House of Commons is the proper forum to divulge his box of tricks. It fell on deaf ears and the fact that Sir Keir Starmer had tested positive for COVID-19 and could not respond to the opposition just seemed to add to the Chancellor's excitement.
He rattled through his well-rehearsed speech as if he were Freddie Mercury top billing at Wembley. Every sentence was upbeat and appeared to make Britain even greater. The Tory benches played their part; clapping, stamping their feet and taunting the opposition as the little Wizzard cooked the books and threw money to every Tory constituency and cause. Only Boris Johnson looked glum, he was being upstaged by the boosterism of his Chancellor. Those ministers on the front bench were twitchy, they knew that too much applause or smiling could see them out of a job as the PM handed out punishments later.
After spending an hour racing through his lavishly claimed giveaways, (the truth will emerge over the next few days), his voice rising in a crescendo of self-importance, the Chancellor slowed the tempo. Astronomical figures of public expenditure, £150bn over three years, had been gifted to the grateful 4 nations of the UK by the Chancellor, he is surely the greatest philanthropist since Andrew Carnegie. He then confessed that he did not really believe in all this public spending and was really a fiscal conservative and wanted to reduce taxes and let the banks and private sector do the heavy lifting. It was true to character, he had to appeal to all parts of the Conservative Party, and being the smart guy he is, he figured that they would fall for his 'contra-speak' as the Prime Minister's popularity continued to wane. Rishi was obviously overwhelmed by the sheer bravura of his performance and fell back onto the front bench expecting more of a gushing response than that the Tory benches were prepared to give him.
Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor had to give the response and she had only 20 minutes to prepare. She nailed it immediately, she didn't need to say that most of the giveaways had already been announced or that they were spread over 3, 4 or 5 years, the media and think tanks would do that over the next few days. She reminded the House that for the most part, the dozens of announcements made by the Chancellor did not even take public expenditure back to the levels that existed in 2010 and that the collapse of public services over this period had led to the lowest productivity increases in Europe or the G20.
Moreover, with inflation at over 4% and rising, the increase in National Insurance, and the loss of £20 a week Universal Credit for those not working there would be a fall in living standards for the majority of working families as well as the 1 in 6 people living below the poverty line. The collapse or reduction of many public services from GPs, social care, social housing, education and a host of community and environmental services merely makes a mockery of the Chancellor's claim that this is a "government of public services".
Rishi was slumped down on the government bench and the Tory boo-boys were trying their best to heckle the shadow chancellor, who was hitting too many home truths. Boris Johnson was looking less angry than when Rishi was in full flight, perhaps Rachel Reeves was on his side. Particularly when she admonished the Chancellor for cancelling fuel duty increases and removing taxes on internal flights. How did that chime with the Prime Minister's claims to be a world leader in tackling climate change?
The panto was finally over and the analysts began to delve deeper into the numbers in the red book. Like any other budget I have witnessed in recent years, it will not be what it seems. The new money for public services will not be sufficient to keep up with inflation. Councils will be expected to take on additional responsibilities without the required funding, many of the announcements will be a repetition of previous unfulfilled promises and funding will have been bulked up by double-counting or end-loading.
Climate change and levelling up have been ill-served by a Chancellor whose fundamental concern seems to be to safeguard the banks and financial services and to protect low taxes for the highest earners and mega-corporations. But then what did we expect, contra-speak is the lingua franca of this government, The Chancellor's 'age of optimism' is just another example of slogans trumping actions.
