There is something strangely British about watching the government go to great lengths to rescue people close to fur. Like putting good biscuits before it’s the end of the Bailiff.
And so we have Sir Keir Keir Starmer – a man who occupied a natural place somewhere between the select committee hearings and the British business line at NO 10 about how Destring is “going on”.
Natwest, sage, Marks & Spencer, Taylor Wimpey, Octopus Energy … All the usual names find a famous door, like shy wedding guests full of ‘UN but they just buy a list gift because, well, it’s tradition. And what do they get for their trouble? A drink, a handshake, and a changed sight of Rachel Reves destroying her financial guillotine on November 26.
Because let’s be honest: Corporate Britain is not stupid. It can sniff out a tax return long before it hits. Businesses up and down the country have been placed under this budget since Reeves started last year, when he went with the employer’s insurance and the lowest salary would have heard the joint insurer of every paid director in the country. That budget, you’ll remember, was destroyed in about nine minutes by the medical dating work it has done in the post-Corbyn years – a form of political medicine designed to convince business leaders that yes, the party had changed; No, no one comes in their boats; Yes, they can come out from behind the couch.
Starmer’s reception This week was meant to be a happy gesture – a warm hug before the cold reality of a black hole locked in £30 billion of £30 billion was revealed. But the whole thing had the atmosphere of GP giving you lollipop moments before telling you they’re going to remove your leg “to be safe” just to be safe “.
What is said to be similar in thinking next will even Gordon Brown Blush. A deceptive promotion of income tax (because who needs promises, really?). A full-blown attack on limited liability partnerships (sorry, lawyers; sorry, accountants; most people won’t apologize at all). And, my personal favorite, the railer on salary pension schemes – those smart little businesses used to keep costs down without asking workers to start living on tinned tomatoes.
Therefore, the atmosphere in the room was not “Christmas in Libels”. It was “The annual meeting of people who know the Bill is coming but haven’t decided who pays”.
The tragedy here – and it is tragic, in the old British sense of foresight and yet somehow oppressive – is that each project had the business community on its side. In the heat of the moment, Starmer and Reeves were the stuff of sane people. Those that would not drive the economy to the right place on the ideological peg. Those who did not treat FTSE companies as enemies of the state. Those, we were told, “Understand how wealth is created”. (And then, three months later, he raised the tax on the people who built it.)
But credibility, like a good steak, is hard won and easily wasted. The Starmer government seems determined to drag it to death with a sharp pitchfork.
The Prime Minister’s biggest hope is that business leaders, desperate to be strong – are so desperate that they will swallow any number of tax increases as long as they are announced in full Fever sentences rather than meet with the federal Government. There is a real truth to this. Business likes to predict. Loves the greats. Likes lights to stay on when you press a button.
But there is a limit to how much your “doing bits” can be told to do before they start thinking about the happiness of Dublin. Reeves’ recent speech, in which he firmly told all that “each of us must do a little for the security of our country and the light of our future”, he felt like being told to wash someone else’s dishes because “we are all family here”.
The road below went down to comment on the guest list, naturally, which is Whitehall code for “Everyone involved is angry but no one wants to go first”. But I suspect that behind forced smiles and warm white wine, Britain’s top brass are quietly discussing how much the government is going to cost them – and whether anything will actually happen.
Because while Starmer may not believe that a few canapé-laden evenings can undo the damage, business leaders know better. Political trust is not rebuilt through concessions; It is also designed with a policy that does not change direction every time the wind blows across the parge yogada.
And unless Reeves pulls the economic rabbits into his red box later this month, the only thing coming out of the top 10 will be Britain.
