Covid-19

New blue tree!
In the first budget by Chancellor Rishi Sunak we saw a new species of tree. A new tree? Yes we did! Gone is the Labour party money tree the mythical giver of low hanging fruit for all and in its place stood the mighty Blue tree. This is a cross between a hardy traditional Oak and some fancy hybrid that just keeps on giving. But then days later from Sunak came the measures to deal with Covid-19. Here was not so much a money tree but a forest. Confused? You are not alone! The first question must be was the Government caught out by the spread of C-19 and if so why? At the moment we are so busy dealing with the virus the lessons will come later. Thinking about budgets as recently as Nov 2019 the Labour party was taken to task for its money tree promises to spend, spend, spend. But that is what we now see and very late in this Covid-19 crisis we also see questions being asked about this spending. Can you really out-spend a pandemic? A spending spree is such a tempting thing for a government to do. But if it goes wrong then it opens the door for your political opponents. So to stop this political to-and-fro Tony Blair gave us fiscal rules. The idea was to lift the financial management of the nation away from political pressure. What could go wrong? Well plenty, it was as most things with Blair an act, a delusion.