Pottering About
A confusing Budget?
The UK has just had a government Budget which was the oddest one I can remember. In fact, it seemed utterly pointless. All the bad news was announced a while back (increased National Insurance, frozen allowances and so on) and all the good news was leaked in the days approaching the formal Budget speech.
Several independent commentators have suggested that taken together, increased taxation and inflation will seriously cramp the spending of the average family or person in the UK by the mid-2020s which is not a going to be good for that part of economic growth driven by consumerism. Some of the announced extra spend in the public sector may compensate for that.
No wonder Tory MPs are a little bemused. Apparently, this government has presented public spending and taxation plans that look like those of the post war Attlee government!
Markets will have been interested in the Chancellor’s comments that inflation is an issue and that he had sent a reminder to the Bank of England that their job it to suppress it (might they have let that slip their minds?). However, the currency markets have been pointing to higher interest rates in the UK for some time (and indeed gilt yields have risen sharply).
You must be logged in to post a comment.