Government borrowing balloons ahead of Budget leaving Reeves under even more pressure
“Higher public spending and debt interest payments have blown a £10bn hole in Rachel Reeves’s budget plans just days before the Chancellor launches another tax raid. In the final set of borrowing figures before Ms Reeves delivers her second Budget, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the deficit stood at £17.4bn in October. That was £3bn higher than expected by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and means the Chancellor has already borrowed £116.8bn this financial year to plug the gap between tax receipts and public spending. It means borrowing to date was £9.9bn higher than predicted by the watchdog in March. The ONS blamed higher inflation for pushing up costs, including higher welfare payments and pay rises for public sector workers. With just days to go until the November 26 Budget, economists widely expect Ms Reeves to embark on another tax raid on households and businesses, with some predicting increases of up to £25bn to balance the books. While debt interest payments eased to £8.4bn in October, the annual figure is expected to remain above £100bn a year for the rest of the decade. Ms Reeves is widely expected to extend a stealth tax on incomes, and raise more money from expensive homes, gambling taxes and pensions through salary sacrifice schemes.” – Daily Telegraph
- Wetherspoon boss Sir Tim Martin demands Rachel Reeves ‘wakes up’ & spares pubs from tax rises in Budget – The Sun
- Rachel Reeves: ‘I’m sick of the mansplaining’ – The Times
- UK government borrows more than expected in setback before budget – The Guardian
- Illegal workers and dodgy firms face crackdown set to be announced in Budget – The i
- UK retail sales drop sharply ahead of Reeves’ budget – Bloomberg
- Rachel Reeves told: Increase taxes on working pensioners to raise £1.1bn – The Times
- As bad as Kwasi Kwarteng’: Rachel Reeves’ popularity hits record low in new poll days before Budget – The Standard
- Labour’s London strongholds to escape council tax raid – Daily Telegraph
Comment:
- Yes, we must invest in defence – but not at the expense of our soft power – Emily Darlington and Gareth Thomas, The Independent
- Britain’s creaking even louder under Labour – Sonia Sodha, The Times
- Rachel Reeves will tax us literally to death next week – see why it STILL won’t be enough – Harvey Jones, Daily Express
- This simple fix would break the benefits trap – Seyi Obakin, Daily Telegraph
>Yesterday:
Covid betrayal of our children
“Childhood was ‘brought to a halt’ by draconian Covid lockdowns, the damning official inquiry found yesterday. Young lives were blighted even though the ‘vast majority’ of children were immune to the deadly virus, it added. Their education and wellbeing were sacrificed to save their elders. In her highly critical report, Baroness Hallett, chairman of the Covid-19 Inquiry, said closing schools and nurseries in early 2020 ‘were steps taken to protect the adult population – they brought ordinary childhood to a halt’. She added: ‘For most children, the closure of schools, the inability to see friends and the requirement to stay at home, were of profound consequence.’ Teachers and parents are now struggling with children who are slow to pass key milestones, due to the huge impacts of the unprecedented 2020 shutdown. In a landmark report into the devastating effects of the pandemic, Lady Hallett concluded:
- Tens of thousands who died from Covid could have been saved if the lockdown had been imposed seven days earlier;
- The lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 could have been avoided altogether;
- Scientists, civil servants, ministers and the devolved governments all failed to react fast enough;
- Britain could have escaped the Covid devastation, but ministers did ‘too little, too late’;
- No 10 adviser Dominic Cummings was a ‘toxic’ and ‘destabilising influence’ as Downing Street grappled with the crisis;
- Boris Johnson ‘should have appreciated sooner that this was an emergency that required prime ministerial leadership’.
Last night Jacob Rees-Mogg, who served in the Cabinet throughout the pandemic, said the inquiry was right to conclude that children had been let down.” – Daily Mail
- Dominic Cummings ‘poisoned the atmosphere’ of Boris Johnson’s No 10, Covid inquiry finds – The Guardian
- UK did ‘too little, too late’, leading to thousands more Covid deaths, says inquiry – BBC News
- Lockdown could have been avoided, Covid inquiry finds – LBC News
- Cabinet Secretary ‘could be ousted over Covid report criticism’ – Daily Telegraph
Comment:
- This Covid inquiry report is a disgrace. Shame on those who produced it – David Frost, Daily Telegraph
- Boris Johnson is finished – there can be no comeback – Isabel Hardman, The i
- Deficiencies of Boris Johnson’s No 10 cost thousands of lives – The Times View
- Covid inquiry cost £192million just to tell us the bleeding obvious – but there was one bright spot – Leo McKinstry, The Sun
- The Covid inquiry, shockingly, has endorsed the destructive madness of lockdown – Isabel Oakeshott, Daily Telegraph
Starmer to approve China’s ‘mega’ embassy in London
“Sir Keir Starmer is expected to formally approve a new super-sized Chinese embassy in the heart of London next month after being given the green light by MI5 and MI6. The Times has been told that the Home Office and the Foreign Office will not raise any formal objections to the plan, providing that appropriate “mitigations” are put in place to protect national security. The two departments, which represent the security services, are expected to submit their formal responses to the planned embassy in the coming days before a decision is made on December 10. A Whitehall source said the embassy’s approval was likely to be a “formality”. Starmer is also expected to travel to China next year as Britain seeks to bolster economic relations with Beijing, despite concerns that it is carrying out large-scale espionage against the UK. Tensions between Britain and China have grown since the collapse of a spy trial in which two men — Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry — were accused of passing information on to Beijing. The pair deny wrongdoing, and the case was brought to a halt after the government refused to describe China as a threat to national security. China had warned of “consequences” if its new UK embassy was not given planning permission. A decision on the development at Royal Mint Court, near the Tower of London — above a vast web of fibre-optic cables used to carry information into the City of London — had been delayed repeatedly.” – The Times
- Sir Keir Starmer preparing for trip to China in the new year – Sky News
- Keir Starmer to ‘approve Chinese mega-embassy’ after security concerns & Beijing warned UK would ‘face consequences’ – The Sun
- Labour caves to China’s demands as Keir Starmer ‘approves’ super-embassy despite spy threat – GB News
- Starmer says he will ‘robustly protect our interests’ amid China trip rumours – The Independent
- The British universities helping China expand its military power – Daily Telegraph
Comment:
- The West can still win the electric car war with China – Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Daily Telegraph
- China’s chip war is only just beginning – John Rapley, Daily Telegraph
News in brief:
- A classical education would civilise Britain’s children – Lola Salem, CapX
- Forty years of mistakes in Northern Ireland – Owen Polley, The Critic
- Covid Inquiry doubles down on myths that justified lockdowns – David Paton, Unherd
- We don’t need white saviours to rescue us from St George’s flags – Patrick West, The Spectator
