Much rides on the new King of the North

So Boston is a new suburb of Scotland!

Who knew that sending 30,000 thirsty Scots to a city would do more for international relations than all the diplomatic efforts of the government? Maybe their next mission should be to go to Israel and Lebanon and work their magic.

A couple of the guys in the office were part of the tartan army horde. Both of them had no idea what to expect not being regular travellers to the USA, and one admitted he was a bit apprehensive given he was visiting ‘The Donald’s’ America. Of course the reality was nowhere like the perception they had been fed by the media and they both said they were shocked how friendly their hosts were and how everything seemed to be booming and, in general, how everything ‘worked’.

It says a lot that we now feel visiting a country where things operate as they should is an unusual experience and just goes to show the challenge our PM in waiting has to get the country back on the rails.

Much has been said about comments Andy Burnham made previously such as saying he would not be subservient to the Bond markets, which of course is naïve as they set the rate of interest we have to pay on money we borrow. I would give him a pass on this comment as it is easy to say things when you are not the one in the hot seat.

In fact, according to the Office for National Statistics, in May the UK paid £11.7bn in interest on its debt, the highest monthly amount since records began in 1993. Over this year it is forecast we will pay over £110bn in interest which is the equivalent of 8.1% of all government spending, and nearly twice what we spend annually on Defence (source – House of Commons Library) so there is no way he will be ignoring the market’s opinion.

He has said he would like to do more to help small businesses, such as reduce business rates particularly for pubs and entertainment venues as well as review the increase in Employer National Insurance. He also wants to reduce the welfare bill by getting more of those on benefits into the workforce. All very commendable but I am sure I have heard governments of various hues say the latter numerous times.

What I do think he has on his side is he comes across as a more empathetic person than most of his predecessors and hopefully he can do what Starmer clearly failed to do, and that is use the fact he has a huge majority of MPs to get real change implemented in the country. That will of course mean upsetting some people but hopefully this time it will not all fall on the shoulders of the ‘wealthy’ but perhaps I am being naïve.

In terms of raising taxes he may be hamstrung by the manifesto commitment which said the government would not increase Income Tax or VAT, in which case he will really only be able to tinker around the edges in terms of raising revenue.

One thing he has mentioned in the past is the equalisation of Capital Gains Tax with Income Tax rates. At the current time the highest rate of CGT is 24% compared to 45% for Income Tax. Now I have no idea if this is something he will change in his first Budget but it is unlikely he will reduce it so anyone thinking of creating a large gain may be best to do so sooner rather than later.

Other suggestions made by him in the past include abolishing council tax and stamp duty and replacing these with an annual levy based on the property value; scrapping Inheritance Tax and replacing this with a progressive ‘national care levy’ which would be applied to all estates to provide a free national social care service, and ‘reconsidering’ the Farm IHT changes to exempt family farms.

Now as I said earlier it is easy to say things when you are not the one in power, but if he still has the willingness to implement some of these changes which are quite radical we could be in for an interesting few years.

In the meantime the tartan army have decamped to Miami, and at least until tomorrow evening will have the World Cup to distract them from the issues back home, which I am confident have been discussed thoroughly between games….