On budget day, I am left somewhat perplexed by the bizarre, yet unchallenged, comment by chancellor Philip Hammond that he intends to “set aside £60 billion to protect Brexit UK”. On the face of it, this makes a lot of sense. Leaving the EU is going to be a lengthy, messy and complex process and there is no doubt there will be serious financial turbulence along the way, so this appears to be a wise move by Hammond. But is it? Really?
My first question is simple: where does this £60 billion come from? Our financial surplus? We don’t have one of those? Our financial reserves? We don’t have that, either. So how will he “set aside £60 billion” that doesn’t really exist?
I don’t think I am being controversial when I say that people do not have a particularly high opinion of politicians. In many instances, I agree with that view. So many politicians talk in riddles, others say one thing but mean another, some repeat cliches in order to embed them into the national psyche. Who can forget the Cameron government’s “long term economic plan”? No Tory MP was allowed to make a public utterance without saying those words. “Crap performance by Arsenal!” “Yes, but we are sticking to our long term economic plan.” Theresa May does the same with her “country/economy that works for everyone”, especially for “ordinary working people”. These are only words, just like “setting aside £60 billion”.
Hammond has not been down to his local branch of Santander and deposited £60 billion just in case there is a rainy day and the country’s roof falls in. These are merely words of reassurance, to the public who are, or soon will be, bricking it as the economy begins to slump and they are for other audiences, like investors, currency markets and countries to ensure they continue to believe everything is under control.
The alternative, I know, is for Hammond to announce, in his usual monotone, that the country is up shit creek, that the national debt is approaching £2 trillion and the deficit is still higher than it should be. He’s not going to do that, but it’s worth being aware of the purpose of all this spin.
Above all, Hammond is laying down a marker for his own budget, to lower expectations among the lumpen proletariat, to prepare them for endless austerity and a delay to Mrs May’s rhetoric about this being a “country that works for everyone”.
One thing I suspect he will not say is that “we are all in this together”, the blatant lie of George Osborne’s time as chancellor. It took years before the majority of the public woke up to the fact that this was pure spin from the ex chancellor and the exact opposite of what was actually going on.
Today will be another exercise in politics and nothing else. There will be little in his budget that could not have been done on any other day. The tabloids will concentrate on petrol and booze taxes and the important stuff will dribble out in the coming days, by which time we will have moved on to other things.
The simple reality of today’s speech is that it will be the usual smoke and mirrors of budgets and when you hear Hammond refer to that £60 billion, you know it’s money that doesn’t really exist, at least not until he orders the Bank of England to print it.
