Editor’s Comment: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

The truth is I haven’t really been away, I’ve been working hard (honest) writing and editing for Financial Planning Today but this column has taken an extended summer break and has now returned. It’s good to be back.

There’s so much to discuss, I’m not sure where to start, but the revolving door for our Chancellors – four in four months – seems a good place.

I’ve covered a lot of Budgets in my day but even I was stunned when former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng announced his now notorious mini-Budget to MPs on 23 September.

I suspect many planners were more than a little surprised too and grabbed their calculators to work out what it meant for their businesses, their clients and their clients’ financial plans.

As it turned out, quite a lot.

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It will take the historians to settle this, but the Chancellor’s main mistake seems to have been to have forgotten his Budget repayment method. At his mini-budget he got his metaphorical card out, bought everyone a sumptuous free lunch and then forgot about how he would pay the bill. Or at least that’s how it seemed.

It will probably go down in history as the biggest Budget blunder of all time but I have to say, without fear of being pelted with rotten fruit, I understand why he and PM Liz Truss did it.

But what drove them? This is, of course speculation, as I have no inside info from No. 10 but hear me out as it might give a clue as to where we go next.

The clues on their motive are two major problems or ‘challenges’ coming up over the next two years. The first is the economy and the second is the next general election, due to be by 2024 (if not sooner depending on how things go, I wouldn’t like to make a prediction here…).

Dealing with the last matter first, the next election, this is a key factor, I believe. The election needs to be held by the end of 2024 but the Conservatives’ popularity in the polls has divebombed in recent times and Ms Truss needed to do something about it, hence a Budget all about growth and improving the electorate’s feeling that better times were ahead.

This also bring me to the economy and why Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng took such a huge risk on a radical mini-Budget with some eye-watering tax cuts designed to spark life in a moribund economy and, perhaps, prevent serious recession next year.

To be fair, despite the opinions of of the doom-mongers, the economy has not yet tanked this year, at least not yet, but next year, looks like a different scenario. We face the threat of rising interest rates, rising unemployment, rising inflation and bills and potentially a severe recession. It doesn’t look good.

With the prospects of a limp economy in 2024 Ms Truss was looking at a massive uphill climb to win the next election and be more than just a stand-in PM. I think this is what motivated her and Mr Kwarteng to do what they did and try to win back some popularity.

So this is all well and good but what next you say? The answer may be not such a radical change in economic policy as many have hinted that, it might really be more of the same just a little less radical. The reasons for tax cuts and budget stimulus remain exactly the same, a depressed economy in 2023 and a grumpy electorate. 

I suspect Ms Truss and her new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt (probably already chatting over tea and biscuits) will be discussing ways they can rejuvenate the economy without scaring the animals. The drivers of her economic policy, as long as she remains PM, are unlikely to change. Remember she is First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor is only Second Lord of the Treasury. Ms Truss calls the shots.

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