Not about the economy, just a party political broadcast
Last year, in my column in this paper, I made a joke about the Chancellor. I said that he was the kind of man to stand at the centre of a worldhistorical realignment in the global economy and announce, with a glint in his eye, that he would introduce a new form of ISA to allow the great British public to take advantage of it.
Jeremy Hunt’s flourishing of a “British ISA” at this Budget confirms that we are living through the dying days of a joke government – in every sense of the word. The UK is trapped in a low-wage, low-investment economy where decades of neglect by successive Labour and Conservative governments have left the domestic market to wither on the vine, and all the governing party has to offer are cosmetic solutions.
Of all the announcements presented by Jeremy Hunt, the reform of the nondom system sums up this government better than any. Its abolition offers no structural remedy to this country’s baked-in economic problems, comes about a century later than it should have (and about a decade after it would have given the Conservative party any political capital) – and it was only scrapped after the existence (and his family’s use) of the archaic and anachronistic non-dom regime politically damaged the Prime Minister.
But this whole Budget wasn’t about the economy at all. This was a pre-election, party political broadcast, right down to its announcement. The press were notified of the Budget’s content in an email from a government employee – a special adviser who is meant to walk the narrow tightrope between party and government with integrity and care – which was full of party political attacks on the Labour party. The Conservatives have clearly given up on governing. Instead, they are using every organ of the state to, as one political editor noted after this Budget, “take the wind out of Labour’s sails” before the upcoming general election.
Indeed, this government has long abandoned any pretence of managing public money with propriety. We, the taxpayer, are meant to grin and bear it while our money is used – as it was this week – to foot the bill for a Conservative minister who was forced to pay damages and costs to a UK academic whom she falsely accused of supporting Hamas. If there was a shred of integrity left in Downing Street, she would have been asked to resign on the spot. This government made us pick up the tab instead.
While the overall tax burden as a proportion of GDP now stands at over 37 per cent – the highest level since 1948 – let us not pretend that this Budget, or even this government, is uniquely bad. The last Labour government’s reliance on private-finance initiatives and the Conservative government’s failure to invest in infrastructure while enjoying the lowest interest rates in modern history have left us with problems that are only now beginning to show their face. Whatever happens at the next general election, Scotland will be paying the price of Westminster government for generations to come.
Stewart Mcdonald is SNP MP for Glasgow South