John Redwood
Guest Reporter
Now we know the truth about this Government. It is the Government of the public sector, by the public sector, for the public sector.
It thinks the private sector is too rich and behaves badly, so it sets out to tax the money away. It regulates more to make business life and success so difficult.
The long run-up to the Budget has allowed Labour to threaten every type of saving and investment with higher taxes. They have let stories run that people will be hit on their pension savings, companies will face a big increase in employers National Insurance, shareholders and homeowners face higher capital gains tax and anyone with money to pass onto their families as gifts or on death will face bigger levies.
No wonder consumer confidence fell away, surveys of business opinion plunged, investments were delayed or cancelled, and more rich people left the country.
As lovers of irony, Labour leaders talked of faster growth and resetting our economy for more investment at the same time as telling us if we dared to work harder, save more, make more profit or employ more people we will be clobbered. What is a National Insurance rise other than a tax on jobs?
So why did they behave like this? They clearly dislike better off people who look after themselves and their families without needing the state, taking them out of government control.
They need to grant the powerful public sector trade unions more money and more staff, as they work so closely together and the party needs their donations.
Want to buy your own home? The Government has slashed the discounts to buy your council house, and helps push up interest rates to keep mortgages dear.
Want to set up your own business? The Government has plenty more regulations for you to obey and will make employing people a lot dearer with extra tax and rules. Want to own shares in the company you work for? The Government will probably tax that more. Want to be an active landlord? You will be singled out for extra regulations and taxes to deter you.
The public sector it is protecting is in need of better management. The new Government just accepts the forecast that the Bank of England will continue to be the world's worst bond dealer, losing tens of billions each year and sending the bill to the taxpayer.
They accept that nationalised HS2 will carry on offering huge cost overruns and delays, lumbering taxpayers with more debts and losses.
Like the previous Government, they are silent on the large accumulating losses at the nationalised Post Office as they calculate the huge bill for compensation after the PO wrongly put key staff in prison.
The Health Secretary said some good things. He acknowledged the very large increase in spending on the NHS in recent years, well above inflation.
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He said he would only commit extra money with reform. Yet we now read of another £10billion being tossed in with no plan for how to spend it more wisely.
As we see the budget revealed it is a charter to spend, spend, spend in the public sector. The fiscal rules are changed to allow them to borrow, borrow, borrow as long as they call the extra spending investment.
The problem is big investment bets like the Bank buying bonds or the railways buying the new HS2 line go wrong and land taxpayers with huge bills and more losses.
Spending £19billion on carbon capture and storage will not make the country rich or bring in money to repay the debts. It is just more cost and burden on the poor old private sector.
It is all part of the dearer energy policy which means more industrial closures and less revenue coming in. We cannot afford this long advertised budget.
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