“Rishi Sunak will use the Autumn Statement on Wednesday to kickstart a Thatcherite tax-cutting drive as he tries to revive his premiership. The Prime Minister has been considering plans to cut National Insurance, raise the 40 per cent income tax threshold and reduce inheritance tax between now and the general election. Measures that would boost economic growth without fuelling inflation, such as a business investment tax cut and tax changes to support workers, are being prioritised in the announcement. Others are expected to be unveiled in the Budget next spring, ahead of an autumn general election.” – Daily Telegraph
>Today:
>Yesterday: Video: “You can trust me when I say we can start to responsibly cut taxes“. Sunak announces his five new priorities.
“Our tax rulebook is so complicated that multi-millionaires can easily find ways to avoid IHT. They may not be able to cheat death, but they can use trust funds and other contrivances to swerve tax liabilities. Those who have done reasonably, but not enormously, well for themselves – perhaps owning a decent but not extravagant house, and having a reasonable but not absurd savings portfolio – find it harder to avoid. They don’t have the resources to employ clever accountants and financial advisers. When the grim reaper comes, the taxman will be following in his wake. And the children – who tend to have less, often much less money than their parents – are made to suffer regardless of their circumstances.” – Mark Littlewood, Daily Telegraph
“The Chancellor should not only raise the Isa limit, which has been frozen at £20,000 since 2017, but take an axe to their investment restrictions…The ‘tourist tax’, a counter-productive levy that requires foreign visitors to pay VAT on their purchases, must be abolished. The Mail has long campaigned against this pernicious tax on the grounds it is killing upmarket shopping in the UK by driving trade from Brexit Britain to Paris, Milan and other European centres. Abolishing the charge would pay for itself and more.” – Alex Brummer, Daily Mail
Other comment
“Rishi Sunak will end the “national scandal” of two million people who are out of work by forcing more benefits claimants to look for jobs, under plans announced in the autumn statement. Under the changes, to be revealed on Wednesday, hundreds of thousands of people with mobility and mental-health problems will be told to look for work that they can do from home. They face having their benefits reduced by £4,680 a year as ministers insist they can no longer be “written off” as incapable of working.” – The Times
“David Cameron vowed to put development ‘right back at the heart’ of the Foreign Office in his first speech after taking his seat in the Lords. Following his surprise political comeback, the Tory former prime minister was officially introduced to the Upper House as Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton yesterday. The Foreign Secretary wore traditional scarlet robes for the short ceremony as he swore the oath of allegiance to the King. Then, in a speech closing the Global Food Security Summit in London, Lord Cameron pledged that the UK will continue to lead efforts to tackle food insecurity.” – Daily Mail
“More than 50 projects have been awarded a total of £1bn in the third round of levelling up funding. The fund is aimed at tackling regional inequalities by backing projects that boost transport and culture. Levelling Up minister Jacob Young said the cash would “restore pride of place and improve everyday life” for people.” – BBC
“Scientists were not aware of Rishi Sunak’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme until it was announced, Sir Patrick Vallance has said. Sir Patrick – then the government’s chief scientific adviser – was giving evidence to the Covid inquiry about major decisions taken in the pandemic. He said it would have been “obvious” the hospitality scheme would cause an increase in transmission risk. He also said the then-PM Boris Johnson had been “bamboozled” by some science. He said the first lockdown at the start of the pandemic was imposed about a “week too late”. And he criticised the “lack of leadership” in the run-up to the second national lockdown in autumn 2020.” – BBC
“The Rwanda scheme is ‘doomed to fail’ if Britain remains in the European Convention on Human Rights, a report warned last night. As Rishi Sunak faced a battle within Cabinet over emergency legislation to start removal flights, an expert urged him to quit the international human rights treaty. Mr Sunak has repeated his vow to do ‘whatever necessary’ to get the £140million scheme off the ground after it was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court last week. As long as the UK remains in the treaty there will be legal challenges causing further delays in implementing the scheme, the paper by barrister and European law expert Martin Howe said…The document, published by the Centre for Brexit Policy, said Britain should give its ‘intention to quit’ the ECHR and the Strasbourg court which oversees implementation of the treaty.” – Daily Mail
“Argentina’s radical libertarian president-elect promised mass privatisations in his first policy statement after his landslide victory on Sunday. Javier Milei, 53, who in his campaign pledged to take a figurative chainsaw to the bloated Argentinian state, listed the vast, part-nationalised energy company YPF, along with several media outlets under state control, as early targets for government sell-offs once he takes office next month. “Everything that can be in the hands of the private sector will be in the hands of the private sector,” he said.” – The Times
“It is the task of today’s politicians to persuade the Blob that pursuing a liberal utopia without limits on migration and funded by dangerous debt accumulation is destined to fail. Can the Tories do that? Many readers will be justifiably sceptical. Which is why the likelihood that a second populist wave and a new Right-wing party – one actually prepared to take on the establishment – will supplant the Conservatives only grows by the day.” – Sherelle Jacobs, Daily Telegraph
>Today: Sam Bidwell on Comment: If it ever wants to start actually winning, the Conservative right has some hard lessons to learn
“This luxurious complacency has to come to an end. In two democracies currently at war, Israel and Ukraine, defence is the responsibility of virtually the whole society. Israel has just mobilised forces three times the size of ours from a country one-seventh the size. Ukraine is a reminder that wars of more than a few weeks are fought not just by an army but by a nation, in which its survival depends on the ability to adapt technology, convert factories, defend its cyberspace — on civilians and factories deploying crucial skills in support of armed forces. While Britain is much less likely to be directly attacked than Israel or Ukraine, a rational person would struggle to survey the world today and consider the emerging threats to be no greater than in the past 30 years.” – William Hague, The Times