So where are the nasties? Philip Hammond’s Budget speech can be summed up as follows: £2.8 billion for the NHS, £44 billion of capital funding and loan guarantees for housing, £400 million for a new charging infrastructure for electric cars, £2.3 billion investment in research and development, £1.5 billion worth of changes to Universal Credit, an extra £2 billion for Scotland – all to be paid for, apparently, with higher taxes on super-strength cider, fags, a few of the smokiest diesel cars and the end of indexation for allowances on corporate capital gains tax.
A modern Budget would not be a Budget, of course, if it didn’t partially unravel thanks to measures hidden in the small print – and they may well emerge over the next few days. But it does seem that, unless there are vastly more Britons swigging cheap cider than I am aware of, these measures will be paid for by delaying, yet again, the day when the government manages finally to balance its books.
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