After months of fevered speculation before the Budget residential property transactions juddered to a halt.
I always suspected that as ‘confidence arrives on foot and leaves by horse’, the feel-bad factor’ generated by the 4-5 months mindless delays before the Budget, would have a detrimental effect on retail spending and economic growth.
Lo and behold, we have just heard from the Office of National Statistics that output in the UK economy fell by 0.1% in October, after a similar contraction in September.
Economists were forecasting a modest 0.1% expansion at the start of the 4th Quarter and this must be now revised. I am sure that there will be a similar downturn in November 2025.
SLOW GROWING ECONOMY
We have the dubious honour of now having one of the slowest growing economies in the G7, with one of highest inflation figures and as if this was not bad enough, the unemployment rate is rising relentlessly – a very sad indictment of the Chancellor’s meddling handiwork across both Budgets.
How much pain must this country suffer in the hands of this innumerate amateur?
When the damage is finally counted the full consequences of these Budget shambles will be laid bare for all to see.
The folly of this incompetent fool and her equally inept mentor, Sir Keir Starmer, will stand out like a pantomime horse on parade.
Allowed to get in the way of a good panic
To justify her tax hikes and spruced-up welfare giveaways, Rachel Reeves had to pretend – straight-faced, no less – that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) had discovered a yawning black hole in the nation’s finances.
The OBR figures did not say what she claimed, but since when has accuracy ever been allowed to get in the way of a good panic?
Pinocchio is a rank amateur by comparison!
Had she ignored the howling chorus of backbenchers demanding ever more public spending and instead trimmed the waistline of our bloated welfare state, Labour could have avoided breaking quite so many manifesto promises.
But alas(!), fiscal slimming is unfashionable to them these days.
Scattering rubbish down the street
Delaying the Budget to the end of November, instead of the usual October slot, merely ensured the national agony was prolonged.
And then came the leaks: a steady stream of speculative tax proposals that resembled a dustcart merrily scattering rubbish down the street.
Whether this cascade of chaos came from loose-tongued Treasury civil servants, or a gossip-happy OBR no longer matters.
What we do know is that after the entire Budget was leaked – an hour before its announcement – the OBR’s Chief Executive, Richard Hughes, was invited to spend more time with his career options.
An unfortunate but fitting metaphor for the Chancellor’s own performance.
Rachel “stranger to the truth” Reeves
Paradoxically, the actual hit on the upper middle classes was not quite as monstrous as expected.
Rachel “stranger to the truth” Reeves spared us savage hikes to Inheritance and Capital Gains taxes.
And despite the rumour mill grinding away like an overexcited bingo caller, we have so far avoided an Exit Tax or a Wealth Tax on those with “the broadest shoulders”.
Dogged TV licence inspector
Mansion Tax is coming. Properties valued between £2 million and £5 million will be slapped with annual charges ranging from £2,500 to £7,500.
This is in addition to council tax which, like a dogged TV licence inspector, simply refuses to go away.
Given the average council tax bill is around £4,000, homeowners will soon face a combined annual charge of £11,000 to £20,000.
These are not trifling sums – and let’s be honest, anyone in London living in a so-called “mansion” worth £2 million probably occupies a three-bed flat with a very ordinary outlook.
‘Champagne socialists’
And just in case you fear ministers might not understand your plight, rest assured – at least 11 of the 22 members of the Labour Cabinet also live-in properties worth (north of) £2 million.
Hark, do I hear the clinking of ‘champagne socialists’ glasses at this inescapable fact?
Great funeral home of abandoned legislation
Technically, Mansion Tax won’t kick in until 2028 and by then, with enough pushback, court cases, appeals and ministerial U-turns, the whole thing may be delayed indefinitely.
It may yet join other deceased Labour policies in the great funeral home of abandoned legislation.
Remember Home Information Packs (HIPs), introduced by Labour in 2007 and scrapped soon after? Well, get ready for the sequel.
The government simply doesn’t employ enough District Valuers to fight the storm of appeals from homeowners who believe their property should be valued at £1,999,999.99, I fully expect a battle royale from homeowners hovering near each band threshold.
Mrs. Property Rich and Cash Poor
Meanwhile, the elderly widow – Mrs. Property Rich and Cash Poor – will supposedly be helped via “reliefs, exemptions, and deferred payments.”
In practice, this means that when she eventually dies, the Revenue will show up like the world’s least comforting undertaker to explain why every last penny of the family estate has already been spent on Mansion Tax and Inheritance Tax.
Good luck with that PR exercise.
Between the already punitive stamp duty and this Mansion Tax wheeze, Britain is on track to become the most heavily property-taxed nation in the world.
A proud achievement if you’re Scandinavian. Less so, if you’re British and would prefer to keep your home.
The Chancellor, had she possessed the faintest grasp of economic cause and effect, could have cut stamp duty by 50%.
This would have unleashed a tidal wave of pent-up residential transactions, freeing capital, boosting VAT, PAYE, and Corporation Tax, and generating real economic growth.
Yes, it might have cost £4 billion upfront – but the resulting surge would have dwarfed the initial expenditure.
Sadly, this point sailed clean over the Treasury’s collective head.
Ideological purity over financial common sense
Similarly, private-school users should have received tax incentives, relieving pressure on the state system.
And non-doms should have been offered a simple deal: pay £250,000 annually to stay, keep foreign income outside tax scope, and boost the Exchequer by billions.
Instead, Labour chose ideological purity over financial common sense.
This “old” Labour Party bears little resemblance to the highly successful, triple Election winning government of Tony Blair’s New Labour, which – whatever one thinks of its politics – understood the basics of fiscal pragmatism.
Today, Labour is floundering at 14% in the polls, has squandered the greatest honeymoon period since political records began, and will likely be obliterated in the local elections of May 2026.
If it isn’t already too late, Sir Keir might consider asking Tony Blair for a quiet word of advice – whispered gently into his shell-like ear.
Unfortunately, it may now be a classic case of ‘shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.’
I think it’s less a case of ‘au revoir’ Sir Keir, and more of ‘Adieu!’
