No Freedom Allowed

The mini budget statement announced by Kwasi Kwarteng was hailed by many as the most libertarian budget in a generation. The horribly split Conservative Party is about to go full circle and produce the most stifling and authoritarian budget ever.

Jeremy Hunt is said to be preparing a raid on entrepreneurs, savers and landlords to help plug the £50bn hole in government expenditure. Mr Hunt is also examining changes to the headline rate, reliefs and allowances on Capital Gains Tax whilst also considering hitting savers with an increase in dividend taxes.

It is a series of measures designed to keep citizens dependent on the state, penalising any attempts to make themselves independent. Officials are also working on a cut to the £2,000 tax-free dividend allowance, meaning any savings, however small, will earn less net interest. Given that current interest rates are a mere fraction of the rate of inflation,

It is one thing expecting those with the broadest shoulders to bear the burden of taxation, but they already do. The money being hit now has already been taxed once.

Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, like a pair of smiling assassins, have let it be known that the black hole will be covered by a mixture of tax rises and spending cuts. But what cuts can we expect?

This is a government that has lost its sense of priorities. Pensioners are fearful that the “triple lock” will be set aside, yet government quangos continue to leech public funds. The poorest face a stark choice between freezing to death or starving, yet the government are set to plough ahead with decarbonising UK public sector buildings at a cost estimated to be £25-30bn. The disabled face a real terms benefit cut, yet HS2, the fast train for fat cats continues its destruction of the countryside, at a rapidly rising cost which may yet head north of £150bn.

This is a government led by a party rendered in two. How the likes of Truss and Kwarteng, along with those supposedly libertarian Conservatives like Steve Baker and Mark Francois, can vote for this abomination of a budget is quite beyond me.

If they do all put party before country as has happened before, then they are surely unelectable, as no one will know which half of the party they are going to get. The only thing they have in their favour is the opposition.

Martin Day – Party Secretary