Four weeks on and the fallout from government’s disastrous budget continues. I’ve never known a budget to keep on unravelling for so long or indeed unite so many people in opposition as I said in the chamber on Thursday. It takes unique political skills that only this chancellor possesses to unite pie and pasty makers, church and charity leaders, philanthropists, university vice-chancellors, and caravan owners. And this week the chancellor’s magic touch extended to his own backbenches as nearly 10 per cent of the Conservative parliamentary party voted against their own government on the budget.
I said in the chamber it isn’t just the budget this part-time chancellor has bungled.
The government has no strategy for growth. While ordinary families are being hammered by soaring fuel, food and housing costs, this chancellor has chosen to give a huge tax cut to the richest one per cent.
Meanwhile, we were all interested to hear from the culture secretary who briefed that the budget process was such a shambles the chancellor didn’t bother speaking to him about the charities tax, presumably he didn’t know about the churches tax either. We all remember that one of the culture secretary’s first acts on coming to office was to give a speech on philanthropy.
In it, he announced the government would be ‘reviewing what it can do to encourage philanthropy across the board’.
And you have to say they have come up with a very novel way of doing it.
Also this week, the government forced through a tax cut for the richest one per cent.
Last November, the Liberal Democrat leader said ‘it would be utterly incomprehensible for millions of people who work hard … if suddenly the priority is to give 300,000 people at the very top a tax break’.
If it was utterly incomprehensible then, why have Liberal Democrats voted for it now?
At Business Questions, I asked if the leader of the House could coax the deputy prime minister to the despatch box to explain his Damascene conversion?
The Liberal Democrats seem to think they can get away with agreeing a policy round the cabinet table, denouncing it in the media, and then voting for it in the House.
And it is not just on the budget they’ve tried this trick.
As the prime minister pointed out (while on his most recent world tour) on the issue of internet surveillance the Liberal Democrat leader secretly signed off the policy in government and then, when details appeared in the papers, he publicly denounced it.
A pattern is emerging.
Judging by his track record the deputy prime minister will now ensure Liberal Democrats vote for the measure while he blames the Tories for it.
Finally this parliamentary session is staggering to a close – ending a spectacularly mismanaged legislative programme with a spectacularly mismanaged budget. And we have already started to have leaks about the content of the next Queen’s Speech.
Almost the entire budget was leaked, but I’ll be seeking to ensure the content of the Queen’s Speech should not be briefed to the media before Her Majesty has delivered it.
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Angela Eagle is MP for Wallsey, shadow leader of the Commons and writes the weekly Business of Parliament column for Progress