This month will forever stick in my mind as U-turn October. The month when Liz Truss’s haphazard and ailing Government lost its nerve and rowed back on most of the key measures in its September mini-Budget.
Bold initiatives that we were told at the time by Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng (unceremoniously sacked on Friday) would spark economic growth through lower taxes – and turn the country into a land flowing with milk and money.
Unlike Margaret Thatcher who was not for turning (the title of Robin Harris’s rather splendid book on her life), Truss is now in danger of doing more turns than Tony Adams has so far completed in the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing. Forever turning, twisting the night away.
On thin ice: We now know what the U-turns meant for Kwasi Kwarteng (cheerio) – for Liz Truss, we will find out in the coming days
We now know the scrapping of the previously planned hike in corporation tax from 19 to 25 per cent – the cornerstone of Kwarteng’s mini-Budget – has been abandoned.
It follows the earlier decision to do a U-turn on removing the 45 per cent tax rate on incomes above £150,000.
Don’t rule out other about-turns as Truss and her new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt strive to assure nervous markets that the public finances will not spiral out of control. A delay in the promised penny cut in basic rate income tax cannot be dismissed.
We now know what the U-turns meant for Kwarteng (cheerio). For Truss, we will find out in the coming days.
It doesn’t look good. For households, they will matter a little – and a lot. A little in the sense that they won’t stop mortgage rates and inflation rising – and household finances coming under extreme pressure. A lot because we are a big step closer to a high tax, wealth-grabbing Labour government.
No U-turns on bank closures
There are no U-turns when it comes to bank branch closures. Irrespective of calls from the Financial Conduct Authority for banks to keep providing people and businesses with access to high street services, branch culling remains the order of the day.
NatWest has just confirmed it is shutting another 43, bringing total closure announcements this year industry-wide to 484. Plenty more will follow between now and New Year as banks push customers online (see Rachel Rickard Straus’s report opposite).
The banks aren’t for turning.
Edict hits cafe society
Cafe society is one of the few positives to have come out of our war with Covid.
Aware of the health benefits, the Government made it easier for bars, cafes and restaurants to get licences for outside seating. The effect was transformative, turning many venues into vibrant community hubs.
Yet, it appears some local councils now want to withdraw these licences for no good reason other than winter is drawing in. Crazy.
Don’t they understand that many hospitality businesses, reeling from staff shortages and soaring inflation, are clinging on to survival – and need all the help going. Don’t they realise that global warming means outside dining is no longer confined to the summer months?
The local cafe I go to at the crack of dawn for my must-have hit of caffeine – Montparnasse Cafe in Kensington – has just received such an edict from Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Issued by the ludicrously named ‘tables and chairs licensing team’, it has told the cafe that failure to remove its al fresco facilities by the end of the month will result in the offending items being ‘cleared and disposed of by our waste contractor’. It adds: ‘ You will be billed for all associated costs.’
Although it says the facilities can be reintroduced when British summer time starts in late March next year (subject to a licence being granted), Montparnasse Cafe owner Meriem Laidi says the loss of the outside terrace represents a big business blow.
‘It couldn’t come at a worse time,’ she told me last week.
She is not alone. A petition has been launched to make the relaxation of rules governing outside dining permanent. Please sign it: petition.parliament.uk/ petitions/615710. Small businesses need to be encouraged through these challenging times, not extinguished.
