There are several points in the political calendar that are wonderfully stimulating for people living with dementia.
During my ITN days, I inherited Budget presentation duties from Alastair Burnet and Peter Sissons.
These moments always prompt a library of memories, and they follow a reassuring pattern of rules, structure, and tradition.
This week’s Budget was a stand-out example.
The UK has one main Budget each year, usually in the Autumn, with a smaller Spring Statement to give an interim economic update.
This single main Budget was introduced in 2016 for certainty, though the government can hold an additional one if needed, such as after a General Election.
Emergency Budgets are also possible when things go seriously wrong. Labour had one in March after the catastrophe in October over the cuts to Winter Fuel Allowances for millions of pensioners.
It was up there with Gordon Brown’s pension raid, the sale of the gold reserves, the abolition of the 10p tax band, and that miserly 75p rise in the state pension back in 2000.
Brown was a clever man, but his political antennae were not always well-tuned. And to be fair, bad Budgets aren’t a uniquely Labour phenomenon.
Few will ever forget George Osborne’s “pasty tax” debacle, or Liz Truss’s mini-Budget, which rocked the markets and sent interest rates soaring.
My own preparation for Budgets never varied. I would pore over the latest Treasury forecasts, predictions for rises or falls in borrowing, growth, inflation, and other key indicators. Then, as the Chancellor spoke, you could say “up, down, same, better, or worse”.
I also ploughed through the papers and made copious notes on hints, pledges, promises, and requests. These formed a kind of checklist.
Alastair Stewart: The political calendar can stimulate people with dementia - this week was no exception
| GB NEWSMORE FROM LIVING WITH DEMENTIA:
This year was trickier, because the Chancellor herself had done more kite-flying than a crowd of schoolchildren on Blackpool beach.
Both the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, the official title being “First Lord of the Treasury”, played fast and loose with tax expectations.
The money markets liked the hints of higher taxes to reduce debt and borrowing.
Voters didn’t, so the hints quickly shifted to “no rises in taxes.”
The markets didn’t like the chopping and changing either. It all began to look like amateur night.
Traditionally, none of this should have happened because of the age-old rule of purdah.
The word refers to a practice in some Muslim and Hindu societies of screening women from men or strangers, usually behind a curtain.
In politics, “purdah” means strict pre-announcement secrecy. It used to be taken very seriously.
In 1947, the UK Chancellor Hugh Dalton resigned after revealing a few Budget details to a lobby journalist minutes before delivering his speech.
The leak appeared only in an early edition of a newspaper, but it was still deemed a “grave indiscretion.”
This year’s Budget made that seem like a minor hiccup.
The Office for Budget Responsibility, OBR, accidentally published its forecasts, many of the measures, and their likely impact on its website as Rachel Reeves waited to deliver her Budget Statement.
Unlike the PM and Chancellor’s earlier briefing antics (what economists called the “Fiscal Fandango” and many of us called the economic “hokey-cokey”), this was more cock-up than conspiracy. But it added to the sense of shambles and gave the day a historic twist.
On Budget morning, political editors are usually summoned to the Treasury to be given the big headlines and themes under strict “deep background”, meaning nothing can be shared publicly.
Meanwhile, in newsrooms, a Treasury official arrives with a copy of the statement to be handed over page by page as the Chancellor speaks. This avoids mistakes.
One year, Nigel Lawson accidentally skipped a page on North Sea oil taxes; we were able to spot it quickly, and he returned to an even keel.
I loved, and still love, Budgets.
I studied Economics and Politics at Bristol University, so this is all meat and drink to me.
Budgets matter because they affect our economic well-being, the health of the national economy, our capacity to work and get paid, and what we can afford, both what we need and what we’d like.
Politically, they are also huge statements of belief and philosophy.
The Mansion Tax on higher-value homes is, in my view, the economics and politics of envy.
The divide in this week’s Budget could not have been sharper, as Kemi Badenoch made clear in her impromptu response.
The two biggest decisions governments face are:
how much to spend on public services, and
the level of taxes needed to fund them.
Traditionally, Conservatives believe in lower taxes and lower public spending, leaving people with as much of their own money as possible, and less responsibility placed on the state.
Labour’s view is the mirror opposite. This was perfectly encapsulated in their decision to freeze the tax thresholds for even longer to pay for lifting the two-child cap on benefits.
Labour boasted that this lifted hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty, but I say, if you can’t afford more children, don’t have them.
I think freezing thresholds are profoundly wrong.
It is a tax on aspiration and hard work: the more you earn, the more tax you pay, and at a higher proportion of your income.
Badenoch spelt this out and said Labour should rename itself the Welfare Party, as it no longer represents workers or work.
This isn’t partisan nastiness. Independent analysts, including the mighty Institute for Fiscal Studies, said this Budget will blunt growth and lower the standard of living for most, if not all of us. Reform UK made plenty of hay out of all this.
The May election will be fascinating.
I predict Labour will be in even deeper trouble, and so will we all.
So, in short, the Budget process was a fiscally crazy shambles, and Starmer and his Chancellor looked like two out-of-control amateurs.
Elsewhere, I was saddened to hear that David Cameron had been treated for prostate cancer. I sent him and Samantha my best wishes and was relieved to hear, in his reply, that the treatment had gone well.
He had sent me a lovely message when I received my dementia diagnosis.
We both chose to be open about our conditions, to help others and encourage people to seek support. It really matters.
I also received a lovely message from an old regular on my GB News weekend shows, retired Admiral Chris Parry, a top-notch defence and foreign affairs commentator. He was simply checking in to see how I was.
Such kindness is precious. He asked if I needed anything and offered to visit. I took him up on that. I miss his wisdom and friendship. We’re sorting out a date -
I can’t wait.