I DIDN’T see the Autumn Statement on Wednesday, but neither did I miss it. We knew how it would play out.
Children, the poor and the disabled caused the mess we’re in, didn’t they, so surely they, not politicians, regulators and bankers, must foot the bill as we try to get out of it.
It was all so tediously predictable and, yet, irrational. Insist we’re on the right track? Check. Insist we can’t turn back now even though we clearly aren’t on the right track? Check.
Austerity is working? Check. Need more austerity because it isn’t really having the desired effect? Check.
Still use that as an excuse to target the working and non-working poor? Check. All very contrary.
Then there’s the tinkering with pensions, a habit Osborne appears to have inherited from Gordon Brown. In cutting the amount that can be paid into a pension each year before tax is charged from £50,000 to £40,000, instead of to £30,000, Osborne’s tactic is obvious – he’s saving the reduction to £30,000 for a later budget so he can create the impression he’s not letting high earners off the hook.
The logic ends there though. Cutting corporation tax is pointless, because businesses need consumers to be spending.
That’s not happening, as they have no confidence in the economy and because, in so many cases, they’re been pummelled by a combination of higher living costs and a government that, scrapping the fuel duty rise aside, is doing nothing to help.
Child benefit and tax credits will rise by just 1 per cent for the next three years. That’s ahead of measures previously announced that will see thousands of middle income households in Scotland lose their child benefit entitlement altogether from next month.
Working-age benefits such as jobseeker’s allowance and employment and support allowance – previously incapacity benefit and on which many disabled households rely heavily – will also rise by just 1 per cent in each of the next three years.
Those who have been brainwashed into believing all benefits claimants are feckless scroungers are presumably happy people with mental and physical disabilities are among those bearing the brunt of this government’s spending cuts. The Autumn Statement came two days after the start of a new government scheme forcing sick and disabled welfare claimants to work unpaid for indefinite periods. Those who refuse will lose large chunks of their benefit payments, even if they’re paralysed, have cancer or suffer from serious mental health issues. That some will take their own lives rather than be subjected to the ordeal is inevitable.
To rub it in, the Autumn Statement helped the government bury the bad news that hundreds of workers at Remploy factories – which employ disabled people – are set to lose their jobs.
No wonder more people are getting deeper into debt and turning to pay-day lenders. They’ll have been pretty pleased with Wednesday’s measures and will be among the few to gain from the package.
That’s a package that will ultimately leave more children in poverty. Save the Children has warned that many kids will go without warm homes, hot meals and winter clothing over the coming months, because their parents can’t make ends meet. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation added that cutting the safety net “consigns the poorest to a decade of destitution”.
All of this while billions of pounds goes unpaid in corporate taxes.
If you wanted more proof that the government is out of touch with public sentiment, its fudge on tax evasion and avoidance surely seals it.
George Osborne blended some tough words on tax avoidance with a pledge to tackle it.
Yet his much trumpeted general anti-avoidance rule contains nothing that will hit Starbucks, Amazon, Google et al. Any climb down by them – Starbucks appears to be leading the way –will be the result of public and media pressure.
All so, so predictable and yet so damaging.
Laughs were at a premium in the Autumn Statement, but I have heard something to prompt a bitter chuckle or two. Edinburgh last week hosted a conference on fairness in finance, run by TheCityUK, a body representing financial services organisations.
The roster of speakers included a prominent MSP and minister, who took the opportunity to suggest that the time for bashing the banks is over.
You see, he’s been travelling a bit. And one thing he’s learned on his travels is that Scotland’s reputation for financial services has been left completely untarnished by the banking crisis.
That’ll be the crisis that ended with Scotland’s proud banking heritage in tatters and its big names under state control.
I don’t know where he’s been visiting lately, but our opportunistic MSP has gone a bit far on that particular flight of fancy.