Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
If it was just a "distraction", why bother with it in the first place? Although I can't believe I'm writing that £2 billion is nothing, it really isn't in terms of Government finances when you see what was spent on the furlough scheme and in capping energy prices. The reason surely has to be that the dropping of the 45 per cent tax rate gave us a look into the hearts and minds of Truss and Kwarteng. You only had to watch Kwarteng's budget speech where he produced his announcement of his great giveaway to the richest at the end of it with a flourish which told you he was thinking this would "shock and awe" - that's a term we heard a lot of in the build up to his speech - well it did shock and awe, but only because it showed how inept a supposedly very bright man really was!
No, the tax rate reduction for the very richest was a pet project for Truss and Kwarteng - a move supposed to set them apart from the more boring wings of their party, a move which was meant to have all of those free market thinktanks which have too much influence these days cheering wildly.
I've just been listening to one of the BBC's political correspondents who said that they always get a brief run down of what a Minister or Shadow Minister's speech to conference is going to say the night before and Kwarteng's was going to be all about him pressing on with the whole of the "fiscal event", but it seems that the interventions of the likes of Gove and Shapps have proved pivotal.
Truss and Kwarteng have both been saying "we get it" this morning - bollox, they don't get it and they never will (although I suppose we shouldn't rule out a switch to Labour or the Greens by Truss in the next few months).