15th December 2009
This is my last Western Gazette column before Christmas. May I therefore wish all readers a very Happy Christmas, and all the very best for 2010.
Whatever you are doing over Christmas, and wherever you are going to be, I hope that you will be able to get some rest, relaxation, and seasonal pleasures!
I always feel that the Christmas Season has truly started for me when I attend the marvellous candle-lit Festival of Lessons and Carols at the Minster, in Ilminster.
The Carol Service was at 6pm on the evening of 13th December, and was again led by Revd Alastair Wallace, who is always warm and welcoming, and who entertained adults and children alike with his talk and his unexpected demonstration of how to make a cake! (There was, of course, a more thought-provoking rationale for this culinary venture).
Alastair is clearly a man who is sensitive to the needs of his congregation, because he promised that the Service and mince pies would all be completed in time to allow avid fans of the “X Factor” to be back home to see the final!
The Service is a lovely start to the Christmas Season, with the wonderful Minster choir complemented by the show-stealing school choir of Greenfylde School, led as ever by the marvellous John Jeffrey.
If only the same Christmas cheer had been able to be on display in Westminster last week, but we had instead the Chancellor, Alastair Darling, auditioning for the role of scrooge.
Mr. Darling presented the Pre-Budget Report with all the dash of a provincial bank-manager with a serious hangover. His officials – who had clearly worked hard to breathe some life into his speech – watched aghast from the Commons advisers’ box as he flunked every opportunity to liven the occasion up. Mr. Darling could make a trumpet sound like a tin whistle, and could so strangle the greatest works of English literature that they would sound as thrilling as the menu at a motorway service station on the M1.
As it was, the Chancellor had good reason to be low key, and many reasons to be scrooge like. He told MPs that the Government is expecting to have a £178,000,000,000 hole in its finances this year – spending £178bn more than it will collect in tax. This enormous amount is about 13% of our total annual output – more than the amount which drove Harold Wilson into the arms of the International Monetary Fund in the 1970s.
As a consequence of this huge deficit, the emergency tax measures are having to be speedily unwound – VAT will go back up to 17.5% in January. And public sector wages will be capped at 1% from 2011 through to 2013, when inflation is likely to be up above this level. The budgets of many departments will be slashed to make ends meet.
Alastair Darling also announced a hike in national insurance contributions – the “tax on jobs”, which could both hit employment and hurt middle income earners. A special bonus tax on bankers sounds popular, but one suspects it will be easy for the well paid to avoid – as it only lasts until 6th April 2010!
The most bizarre aspect of the whole Pre-Budget Report was that all the extra money being raised in higher taxes is going to be allocated not to deficit reduction but to higher public spending totals in 2011-2013. This seems to be absolutely barmy when we are starting off with such a huge budget deficit.
But the truth was that this budget was framed more to create political “dividing lines” than to address the big economic issues facing the country.
We are leaving behind a tough year – for the economy, in Afghanistan, and for Parliament. But there is no easy ride ahead.
Early in the New Year Sir Thomas Legg will complete his investigation into MPs claims going back to 2004. He has already written to me to confirm that all my claims are in order and that he is not asking me to pay any money back. But many MPs will be getting large bills for repayments.
If Parliament is to be ready to confront with confidence the challenges that 2010 will bring, it must swiftly restore the confidence of the country, and the self-confidence of MPs themselves, in our political system.
Happy Christmas to all readers,
Ever,
David.