They say tax doesn’t have to be confusing. When Brillo asked Angela Rayner on the Daily Politics about capital gains tax she was very confused. Not for the last time.
Andrew Neil tells the i newspaper…
“I’ll almost certainly go whoever takes over. I’ve had a good 20-year innings and it’s time to declare and let somebody else bat… I don’t really want Murdoch to own The Spectator but I wouldn’t object to him getting it… The matter of a foreign government owning media assets is a matter of public policy. With Marshall it’s just a matter of we don’t like him and we don’t want him. That’s a personal preference.”
Andrew Neil summarises this year’s political story…
“The dominant feature of British politics in 2023 has been the failure of the Conservatives to move the dial.”
Andrew Neil on the budget…
“This was the Budget of a mainstream social democratic government that believes in a big, activist state and that government should temper the workings of the market in every sector and at every opportunity.
To pay for it all, the tax burden will rise to 37.3% of GDP next year, the highest since World War II. This may or may not be the right way to run an economy in the 2020s but it’s not what Tories have been used to, at least not until recently.”
Andrew Neil makes a perceptive point about the international media…
“The global currency and debt markets have had a ‘down’ on Britain for some time. It’s not clear why. Britain’s debt-to-GDP ratio is among the lowest in the G7 club of big economies. Our budget deficit is on a par with many other major economies. Economic growth is anaemic — as it is everywhere, from the Eurozone to America to China.
I suspect it’s a Brexit hangover. The publications global market players read most closely include the New York Times, the Economist, the Financial Times and leading European papers such as Le Monde and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. All — and others like them — have been relentlessly negative about Britain since the 2016 referendum.
This air of constant gloom has permeated global financial markets. Plenty of influential Remainers have been only too happy to encourage this negativity, if only to justify their anti-Brexit stance. But it does represent a serious constraint — a discipline even — on the Government’s ability to borrow more than it already plans.”
