
Robert Halfon: We should be pro-private enterprise, anti-mega corporates – which plunder the taxpayer again and again
Plus: Let’s cut VAT on energy bill as soon as we leave transition – deal or no deal. And: first Ardern, then Biden?
Plus: Let’s cut VAT on energy bill as soon as we leave transition – deal or no deal. And: first Ardern, then Biden?
The Government should be mulling some quick Brexit wins come the New Year – ways of using freedoms that we don’t have during implementation.
The Chancellor is groping his way, knowing well that the future is unknowable, trying to hold on to as much of the past as he can.
What normalisation should mean is the return to a functioning market economy where our wants and needs are met in today’s circumstances.
Given the Coronavirus uncertainties, whatever he announces could be even more provisional than most schemes of most Chancellors.
It should be remembered that the arts contributes more to Britain’s international earnings, in the aggregate, than does the City of London.
The Chancellor should use his statement on Wednesday to announce a comprehensive and ambitious plan to counter the threat.
It’s a good thing for former senior Ministers to keep thinking, going and contributing, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see a comeback to government.
Post-Covid, the environment is likely to be egalitarian and interventionist. For libertarian, small state Eurosceptics, this must come as a disappointment.
No fuel duty rises, self-employed taxes, income tax rises, more taxes on food and drink – and the like.
The Government has to generate revenue quickly, but austerity and spending cuts are not viable options.
It should remove those taxes and regulations that will stop business from applying their ingenuity on the problem of rebuilding from the ruins.
By adapting the Statutory Maternity Pay system, the Chancellor’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme will improve the lives of thousands of people.
The Chancellor should make further provision for them. But the vast though necessary expansion of state spending will need emergency powers-type checks.
The Coronavirus will punch a hole in Sunak’s sums sufficient to throw levelling-up, Boosterism, Brexit bonuses – what have you – off course.