OPINION – Andy Preston: Instead of tackling our national debt or weak defence systems, the Chancellor announced a new £15million misogyny prevention fund.
John Healey shouldn’t be smiling after delivering a Budget full of ‘gimmicks’ (Image: AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
John Healey spent years as defence’s best friend inside Labour. Then he got the Treasury keys and ditched them. Not such a good mate after all. He said his dramatic resignation from government expressed his personal commitment to defence and our armed forces – demanding that Starmer take our security seriously. I liked that a lot and it made me like Healey too.
Back in August when my mate Paul, a builder, asked me what I thought of new Chancellor Healey, I said “he’s a good guy…I think he’ll always do what’s right.” How wrong I was. Of course he and his supporters will cry that he is committed to funding defence properly, just later on. But we all know what that means don’t we – mañana, as they say in Spain.
Reeves and Starmer were the absolute king and queen of promising better things later on – critical things like economic growth and cuts to spending. But they were never going to happen and that pair were really just trying to buy time – hoping that something or other would pop up and get them out of the mess. But that never happens.
The only way to deal with an imminent financial crisis is to face it head on. Sadly for us confronting unpleasant truths is just not something our government thinks important. The big boss – Andy Burnham – is only driven by his desire to be popular. He exists to be loved and that’s what this budget was about – avoiding anything that might cause pain to voters, today.
The budget is terrifying because it pretends that there isn’t a real risk of war on our doorstep. And it just doesn’t want us to twig that we are hurtling towards national bankruptcy that will torture the poorest and most vulnerable citizens.
Instead of cutting welfare or even limiting its dangerous expansion Healey’s focused on woke politics and trinket-like giveaways. These little ‘gifts’ cost billions when you add them up. All the while spending on working-age benefits balloons at the cost of defence and paying down debt.
Look at the gimmicks, a hundred quid for council tax bands A to D. Of course, families under pressure will welcome that money but we must not pretend that this is a plan. It costs about £2.6billion, paid for in part by temporarily jacking up the bank surcharge. Scrapping gas standing charges sounds tough until you notice it doesn’t start until 2027. Even then it’s just reshuffling who pays – the total bill is the same.
Mr Healey went full woke at a few points, funding a £15million misogyny prevention fund and £100million for a women-only business fund. These acts might be sexist, but they are also negligent when we are close to war and insolvency.
Debt is still rising. It is already £14billion a year higher than the March forecast and to make things worse the OBR has cut next year’s growth from 1.6% to 1%. Labour promised growth. We need growth but this wasn’t a budget for that. It was a budget for short term popularity.
Kemi Badenoch put it simply: overspent, overborrowed, overtaxed. She’s right. Healey once said that without a firm date for 3% defence spending our country was not safe. I think this means we are not safe.
I’ve spent more than a decade raising £7million to fight homelessness through CEO Sleepout. Healey put another £430million toward ending rough sleeping. Good. Every penny that gets someone off a doorway matters. But a bed for the night is not a home. And in the same Budget he’s put up tax on rental income, discouraging landlords from renting properties – thereby shrinking the number of homes available and worsening homelessness.
The OBR itself say that fewer landlords and higher rents will now follow. More will be on the streets. You can’t end rough sleeping while you squeeze the supply of homes. Build them.
I am not surprised. I am dismayed. We were sold a Chancellor who put national security first and took the difficult decisions. We got one who ditched his friends in defence so the welfare juggernaut could keep rolling. And his boss could stay loved.
Britain does not need a leader who only wants to be liked. It needs one who will be respected when the bills and the threats land.
This was a Budget for Burnham, not for Britain.
• Andy Preston is a former fund manager and was the elected mayor of Middlesbrough from 2019 to 2023