A lousy budget for business
Against a backdrop of so predictable and ongoing crypto failures, Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse, though the UK operation now nestles safely within the muscular bosom of HSBC, and the ongoing financial soap titled Credit Suisse, Jeremy Hunt presented his first traditional budget.
With the Bank of England, blowing the dust off its “Janet and John Tackle Inflation” with its outdated and murderous, high interest rates sledgehammer, the backdrop painted by Whitehall and Threadneedle Street featured black storm clouds and a some high-priestly figures brandishing trumpets.
Welcome to Whitehall, somebody please tell its besieged inhabitants that current inflation is a direct result of energy and food prices being driven up by a war. High interest rates will do nothing corrective there.
Tell them, too, that the UK economy is 80% plus driven by services and that, jammed between the 12.5% Corporation Tax rate of Ireland and the 25% found with the EU powerhouses, the UK’s 19% is a powerful business winner. You could remind the Treasury mafia that when the rate was last dropped to 19%, the Laffer curve curled relentlessly upwards and massively improved the take.
Yet, so annoyingly, and despite Treasury boots trying to stamp out any embers emitting growth smoke signals, our economy, stubbornly, will not listen and it grows. It will continue to grow. Hunt had to acknowledge this in his speech, through gritted teeth no doubt, when he discounted any fears of the UK suffering a recession like that threatening Germany. But he did absolutely nothing to help SMEs.
No problem, Jeremy. Our SMEs are driven by a mindset that would have Whitehall’s inmates screaming “bullying”, and “where’s my mummy”? (A “childbearing person” to them.)
Luckily in creating 50%+ of UK GDP and 60%+ of new employment, wealth creating employment that is, not some Mandarin out empire building, our SMEs and the UK economy will continue to grow despite you. Give our SMEs the tools, and allow them their just reward, and it will grow even faster: and inflation continue to tumble too.
I did not vote and work to help your party win an 85-seat majority Jeremy, to get this.
Bob Lefroy
Group Editor Business Money
