“Plus Ca Change le Plus Ca la Meme Chose” – again
I apologise for recycling a sub heading I used in one of my first ever website articles (about West Ham United at the time, as you asked). If football isn’t your thing then perhaps I could compare the events of the past week to that period in Dallas where Bobby Ewing’s death was suddenly glossed over as part of his ex-wife Pam’s bad dream when fans expressed their annoyance at his passing.
So to sum up for any non-West Ham/ Dallas fans, Kwasi Kwarteng was in the USA on ministerial business when he was summoned back by Liz Truss (his supposed political soul mate) and sacked on the spot for producing a set of measures which she was firmly in favour of just a couple of weeks before. By then the 45% income tax rate had already been reinstated with the corporation tax soon to follow.
In his place appeared Jeremy Hunt, who has now broadly scrapped everything Truss and Kwarteng were so positive about, save the 1.25% Social Care Levy which nobody in the NHS would have any surprise over, and the uplifts to the levels before Stamp Duty hits. Far be it from me to suggest that the last measure might be of benefit to someone who has a 50% interest in a property firm – although he didn’t disclose his status as a PSC at Companies House, nor did he declare it in the Parliamentary Register of Members’ Interests in the required time frame either …
I could go into detail about what the rates and rules have gone back to, but let’s be honest they’ll probably change their minds again next week when the Prime Minister goes.
Mike Carabine