Prepare for the over-taxed young to flee

Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement sent a depressing message to the young people of Britain. We will see the highest taxes in decades, more money being thrown at public services which do not work, while anyone with an ounce of ambition will be hung out to dry. It is remarkable that this is our “Conservative” Government’s plan: a devastating blow to the hopes and dreams of hard-working people of my age.

The budget is massively redistributive, but this is no Robin Hood moment. The Government’s priority is to rob the young to pay for the old. While the measures actively crush the rest of the economy, the state pensions triple lock has been kept intact, meaning that pensioners will get a record increase.

There will also be cost-of-living payments for the “most vulnerable”, with £300 for pensioners and £900 for those on benefits. Pensioners, many of whom are millionaire homeowners, are being handed this cash purely due to the fact that they are above a certain age. Middle earners are being squeezed to prop up the living standards of people who, in many cases, do not need the help.

For the working-age population, meanwhile, living standards are collapsing. Both income tax and national insurance thresholds are being frozen, punishing anyone who gets a promotion or works hard to get a pay rise. Council tax is also set to rise across the country, and capital gains tax will be charged on the vast majority of profitable transactions. With these soul-crushing tax rises, we can kiss goodbye to a future of a booming high-growth Britain.

The UK is continuing its miserable drift towards statism and interventionism. As of this summer, a staggering 5.3 million Brits were on out-of-work benefits. Far from doing anything to end this scandal, by uprating benefits in line with inflation Hunt has sent these people a clear message: that they will be better off relying on the contributions of taxpayers than by working for themselves. And can we really blame them? The system is broken, crushing the incentive to be ambitious or even to work at all.

Despite empty promises of fiscal conservatism, government spending as a percentage of GDP is now almost 30 per cent higher than it was 22 years ago under Tony Blair. Hunt is throwing yet more billions at “our” NHS, a bureaucratic black hole that continues to fail the public. Despite there being a record 7.1 million people now waiting for NHS treatment, and despite clear evidence that the health service’s productivity is collapsing, there is no sense that the Government will engage in anything other than cosmetic reform.

Then there is home ownership. Our dreams of owning our own homes are being dashed by Nimbys and reluctant local councils, and by a Government too cowardly to do anything about them. Indeed, any hope of planning reform, childcare reform or removal of red tape more generally has been thrown out of the window for the foreseeable future. The “anti-growth coalition” that Liz Truss warned us about has won.

Hunt is committing intergenerational theft: there is no other way of looking at it. We’re being plunged into economic decline as a result of the Government’s reckless borrowing and spending, as well as by its addiction to a failed Brownite economic model, and now hardworking people are expected to foot the bill.

Many in my generation will, as they did in the 1970s, look at the current situation and seriously consider moving somewhere where their hard work is rewarded.

What sort of future do we have in Britain?

Why would you want to stay in a country where your ambitions are crushed by a state addicted to benefit and pension spending?

We can kiss goodbye to a future of a booming high-growth Britain