Budget

Growing up, once a year, children's TV was disrupted due to what the announcer would call, I though, the Budgie.

This was the budget, where the Chancellor would outline the Government's spending and taxation plans for the next 12 months.

Yesterday we got a bonus budget where the Conservative Chancellor announced a huge raft of spending, but coming a month after also announcing the biggest tax rises in a generation bringing the UK's tax burden to it's highest levels in peacetime.

THis is supplosed to be a post-COVID budget, but its not over, COVID that is, with nearly 44,000 fresh infections on Wednesday and a further 207 deaths, bringing a running total of 140,041, excess death rate is far, far higher.

All budget talk was of the post-COVID recovery, and yet the elephant in the room was Brexit.

But the Office for Budget Responsibility, (OBR) later said:

“so far the data that we've seen on impact of Brexit, especially taking into account fact new trading arrangements came in in January is broadly consistent with assumption we had, which is that it would reduce our long run GDP by around 4%”

Meaning the effects of Brexit will be worse than COVID, and will last until policy changes.

Reality check.

If you're keeping track, the economic hit from Brexit will be twice as bad as COVID, and that's from the Government's own analysis.