I thought that a note of explanation is required on how I will be covering the Budget this week, because I will not be covering it in the way that I planned.
For well over a decade I have been offering budget commentary on whatever a Chancellor has had to say while sitting in Jeremy Vines' studio at BBC Radio 2. Doing so, I have always been in the company of a right-wing commentator, most usually Mark Littlewood during the period when he was chief executive of the Institute of Economic Affairs. I have greatly enjoyed the opportunity that his has provided to tear apart what both Tory chancellors and Mark have had to say for the benefit of up to seven million listeners.
The plan agreed with the BBC was that I would be taking part in that discussion again this year, and arrangements were in place. However, plans do not always work out, and the wife of a colleague and close friend of mine died earlier this week. Her funeral will be on Wednesday and I will be there instead of joining the BBC. As I will also be travelling and staying away for the funeral the pattern of this week's videos and blogs is, at least on Wednesday and Thursday, uncertain.
This might also mean that my usual Twitter commentary on the Budget is unlikely to happen. Although the funeral formalities might be over by then I very much doubt that the wake will be, so when, if, and how I may comment on the budget will be very much a matter of waiting to see what circumstances permit.
I am sure that you will understand, just as much as the BBC did.
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My condolences to you and your friend.
I would not expect you to do anything else.
Thanks
Noted – you do right to honour your friend’s passing.
Thanks
You have your priorities correct.
Indeed, I am wondering whether “instant reaction” to the budget is worth much these days. “Back in the day” the budget was kept (fairly) secret until measures were announced in Parliament. Prior to that there was little discussion so, instant reaction was worth something.
Today, all the possibilities are leaked or floated beforehand… and analysed to death before they are spoken.
On the other hand, any opportunity to lay into the IEA should probably be taken.
I will take one if it comes my way
Yes indeed – condolences to you and your friend.
Life – and death- does have a way of intruding.
This time you might have both been critical of the budget – although from differing standpoints – instead of one for and one against.
It will be a day for friends & family. Don’t let Reeves interrupt it!
Here’s yet another clue as to how the budget will offer us nothing – Starmer’s contribution to “expectation management”…
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/oct/28/keir-starmer-budget-harsh-light-fiscal-reality-uk-politics-live
Apparently, the budget will ignore the “populist chorus of easy answers”.
That tells me all I need to know. Starmer/Reeves clearly still have that Liam Byrne note pinned on their office wall, the one that says there’s no money left.
She and the Treasury want us to regard public spending, and public investment as “populist easy answers”.
But neither she, nor Starmer, nor McSweeney nor any other of the many advisors (see this August list from The Spectator), have any idea what to do, or, if they do, they lack the courage to do it.
He never said ‘there is no money LEFT’, he said ‘there IS no money’, which to the initiated means something totally different! I personally believe that was the basis of the joke. He had learned that money is not the finite physical thing that it is projected to be.
I wish that was true
There is no sign that he does have that understanding
There’s something biblical, ill-remembered, about letting the dead bury themselves.
I think you are making the right choice to be where you are needed most. There will be another budget next year…….. and there will be few surprises in this one as current practice market tests all major budget decisions weeks in advance allowing time to rethink if the media throws a wobbly.
I thought ‘purdah’ was silly, but the current arrangements are worse by far.
I guess you have become Anglicised in that you refer to the wake following the funeral whereas my understanding was that the wake preceded the funeral in Irish tradition.
My condolences on your loss however you mark it.
Thanks
[…] I mentioned earlier this week, this is an unusual Budget day for me. I will be at a funeral and will not be able to comment until […]