It’s already too late to prepare your business for the Budget October 24, 2024 Transactions rushed through ahead of the Budget are more likely to be on HMRC’s radar and subject to additional scrutiny, says Stephen Kenny This Budget has created panic of a magnitude that I haven’t seen for many years. Widespread talk of closing ‘loopholes’ – despite the fact that most aren’t actual loopholes but previous tax [...]
Make the Tories Conservative again? October 23, 2024 A particularly laughable defence of socialism is that it’s never really been tried. It’s tempting to dismiss the central analysis of both candidates for the Tory leadership – that their Party lost the general election because they were not conservative enough in government – on similar grounds. But it would be a mistake to imagine [...]
The walls are closing in on the Chancellor October 23, 2024 With just one week to go until the Budget (arguably one of the most consequential in recent memory) economists, investors, analysts (and most certainly journalists) are scouring everything from tea leaves to official data for indications of what exactly the Chancellor is going to say next Wednesday. Most people agree that her choices are limited [...]
Craft beer: it got corrupted, now it’s being reclaimed October 23, 2024 I’ll have a craft beer, you might say, when your colleague proposes another round at the pub. Coming right up. But… what actually is a craft beer? Well, once upon a time (the 1970s) it reliably meant “made in an independent brewery”. Later on it got hipsterified, and in the 2000s and 2010s a choice [...]
This Budget looks set to be more car park than roadmap October 23, 2024 You have probably read at least two dozen columns speculating on where those tax rises of doom are going to land in next week’s budget, so I’m not sure there is much more to say on the big topics of contention. We’ll find out soon enough whether employers’ National insurance (NI) really will go up, [...]
Labour is failing the Lonsdale test October 23, 2024 The government should be asking: If Joe Lonsdale were to launch a podcast called British Optimist, what would we need to do in order to make his guests say they were positive about the future of the UK? Says James Price In a crowded field, there is one podcast whose new episodes I both look [...]
Borrowing to invest is all very well but what about value for money? October 23, 2024 The precise contents of the budget are still secret. But a widely trailed theme is that the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, wants to create as much scope as possible for extra public sector investment. She appears to be willing to rewrite the existing fiscal rules in order to accommodate the increase. In principle of course there [...]
The Notebook: The self-employed pension crisis is on the cusp of boiling point October 22, 2024 A new report has shown the self-employed are facing a pension crisis. Interactive Investor's Craig Rickman digs into the findings.
It’s hard work working out what ‘working people’ means October 22, 2024 Politicians do like to lump people together. In recent years we’ve had the squeezed middle, the just-about-managing, hard working families and (who could forget?) Nick Clegg’s “alarm clock Britain.” To this list of amorphous jargon we must now add “working people.” Labour figures have been leaning on the phrase for months, not least as part [...]
A warning to Reeves: These tax rises will damage UK competitiveness October 22, 2024 Not only is the UK tax burden at record levels, but we are raising money in a more damaging way than our competitors. And the Budget could be about to make things even worse, says Daniel Herring Next week, Rachel Reeves needs to try not to make the UK’s tax system worse. Yesterday the US-based [...]