Chancellor George Osborne unveiled the 2013 budget yesterday to a cacophany of groaning apathy. Limited measures tinker around the edges but make no fundamental changes in the near future that might offer a way out of the economic doledrums. Economic statistics appear warped beyond recognition – the product of a clamouring desperation to give the impression that things aren’t really as bad as all that.
Didn’t they warn you about being snapped with documents?
Even amongst the small and medium business fraternity – an area you’d expect to back the chancellor to the hilt – the response was little more than a lukewarm “meh”. We can only conclude that the fundamental malaise afflicting our economy and wider society will retain it’s vice-like grip on our fortunes for the foreseeable future – and indeed tighten it’s hold with every passing month that the treasury continues to espouse a discredited and unsuitable economic orthodoxy.
The one potentially positive measure – the raising of the personal income allowance to £10,000 – causes the chancellor problems. For a start, it’s patently a Lib Dem policy and there’s no way for Cameron and Osborne to take the credit for it with a straight face. Secondly, it’s not going to be implemented for at least another year. Whichever way you cut it, this represents a political risk. Should the already fragile economic circumstances take a significant turn for the worse, possibly as a result of the perpetual eurozone crisis reaching a new phase or a new conflict opening up somewhere in the oil-producing world, this leaves the chancellor with the genuine possibility of not being able to deliver the one positive nugget in an otherwise doddering and humdrum budget.
Only the nutcases at the Daily Express have come out in unreserved exultation. The barrage of bile-filled tweets that the chancellor received after launching a twitter account perhaps provide a more accurate assessment of his jabbering, deluded drivel.