Tory failure continues

Certain phrases enter the political lexicon.  Unemployment is a price worth paying – Tory Chancellor Norman Lamont.  In office but not in power that too was Norman Lamont following his sacking by John Major when the UK was chucked out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism.

Now we have another that beggars belief.  There is no unemployment – so said Chancellor, Philip Hammond on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show. With 1.4m registered unemployed, and more than three million insecure workers, who have no idea how to pay their bills from one day to the next, Hammond hasn’t a clue on how we live.

And today his budget with its litany of bad jokes can’t hide the fact under the stewardship of the Tory government, of which he has been an integral part since 2010, has failed and will continue to fail.

As Unite’s general secretary said in his response, “With yet further bleak downgraded forecasts for growth, wages and productivity, this is the time when this country desperately needed a game-changing budget to meet the challenges of the years ahead. Instead we got more of the same from a government out of touch with people’s every day struggles.”

And on the biggest issue of our age, Brexit:  “The businesses upon whom millions depend for work are no clearer today on the government’s plans to steer us through our EU exit than they were this time yesterday.

“The comprehensive package of investment in skills and infrastructure we urgently need was missing”.

Stamp duty ‘rabbit’

Hammond may want his abolition of stamp duty for first time buyers on properties worth up to £500,000 on the first £300,000 to be the headline – his rabbit out of the hat – but it is slow productivity growth and economic weakness that condemns people to further bouts of misery.

Wages will continue to plummet, personal debt will continue to soar to dangerous levels and the cost of living squeeze will continue.

It was always a sick joke that those with the broadest shoulders will bear the biggest burden.  We have seen that for what it is – those least able continue to be hit.

Child poverty has risen to 4m under the Tories and is set to rise by a further million by the end of this Parliament. There’s been a 30 per cent increase in food bank usage in areas where Universal Credit has been rolled out.  Only last week the TUC released figures that show one in eight low paid workers skip meals to make ends meet.  The Resolution Foundation have found that wages will continue to be lower than 2007 until at least 2022.   This budget will not change these shocking statistics.

Nor will the announcement on stamp duty help those with high rents.  Far from it in fact surprise – surprise it will be those who already own property who will benefit most.

During the snap election Labour said we needed a government for the many not the few.  The Chancellor could have countered this and brought about a fairer, more equal country.  He didn’t do that.  This budget demonstrates it was true then and it true now.