The build-up to next Monday’s Pre-Budget Report (formerly known as the Autumn Statement) is one of the most bizarre I can remember.
Every day for the last fortnight we’ve been subjected to hints and suggestions from Ministers and Labour apparatchiks on what may or may not be in it.
Tax cuts seem certain, as do measures to help small businesses including forcing banks to lend them more money.
Normally, this speech is low key in comparison to the Budget itself, but not this time.
Indeed, such is the profile being given to the event that many in the political world are now speculating about whether Gordon Brown is intending to use Monday as a launch pad for a June 2009 General Election.
This would certainly seem like a logical conclusion because, from what we know so far, his Monday giveaway followed another one in the Budget proper next spring will almost certainly place this country in greater debt than at any time in living memory.
The Government has already conceded that taxes will have to go up to pay for these splurges; what they have not admitted is that Labour dare not risk doing this in advance of a General Election.
However, an election on June 4th - the day of the European and county elections - would allow Gordon Brown, should he be successful, to put our taxes back through the roof on June 5th.
So, where’s your money?
Every day for the last fortnight we’ve been subjected to hints and suggestions from Ministers and Labour apparatchiks on what may or may not be in it.
Tax cuts seem certain, as do measures to help small businesses including forcing banks to lend them more money.
Normally, this speech is low key in comparison to the Budget itself, but not this time.
Indeed, such is the profile being given to the event that many in the political world are now speculating about whether Gordon Brown is intending to use Monday as a launch pad for a June 2009 General Election.
This would certainly seem like a logical conclusion because, from what we know so far, his Monday giveaway followed another one in the Budget proper next spring will almost certainly place this country in greater debt than at any time in living memory.
The Government has already conceded that taxes will have to go up to pay for these splurges; what they have not admitted is that Labour dare not risk doing this in advance of a General Election.
However, an election on June 4th - the day of the European and county elections - would allow Gordon Brown, should he be successful, to put our taxes back through the roof on June 5th.
So, where’s your money?
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