As Chancellor John Healey prepares for his Budget at the end of October, a continual barrage of grim warnings surrounds the toughness of his task. Only yesterday it was revealed that the Government had to borrow £18.5 billion in August, up a fifth from the total in the same month last year. Against an economic backdrop of sluggish growth and soaring debts, Healey is said to be facing a hellish choice between spending cuts and tax increases to balance the books.
Public finances not 'eye-wateringly tight'
But such arguments are based on a profound fallacy. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the public finances are not “eye-wateringly tight.” In fact, there are gargantuan amounts of money sloshing around the system. This financial year, the government will spend £1.42 trillion, the equivalent of 45% of national economic output. It is ridiculous to pretend that the government is in dire financial straits when it is in command of such sums.
A glance at current public spending illustrates the nonsense of the idea that the chancellor has to wear a hair shirt. This year, the government is lavishing £342 billion on welfare, including £40 billion on housing benefit, which is in effect a massive subsidy to landlords. Another £203 billion goes on the NHS, one of the largest healthcare budgets in the developed world, making a mockery of all the eternal wails about underfunding. There is plenty of cash for state bureaucracy.
In 2024/25, at least 4,733 town hall employees enjoyed pay packages of over £100,000, while in the same financial year at Transport for London, there were 2,217 staffers with six-figure salaries. Government claims of poverty are a myth designed to prepare the ground for yet more tax increases.
SNP's drug strategy failure
The devolved Scottish Nationalist Government in Edinburgh is no advertisement for home rule. Wasteful and parochial, the SNP administration is impressive only for its longevity, not for any of its achievements.
This week came news of another failure by the SNP. An official report showed that the number of drugs-related deaths increased by 11% in 2025, reinforcing the country’s unwanted title as the drugs capital of Europe. The total of 1,133 lives lost was not just a tragedy, but also a severe indictment of the Scottish soft-touch strategy of treating drug abuse entirely as a public health issue. With its emphasis on rehabilitation and treatment, this approach was meant to be more effective than the traditional focus on criminality. But the liberal experiment has only encouraged possession and dealing. It is time for a dose of old-fashioned common sense, and some long jail terms for pushers.
Liberal Democrats' leader criticised
The Liberal party has had more than its share of duds and charlatans as leaders, like chronic alcoholics Clement Davies and Charlie Kennedy and the ineffectual Herbert Samuel in the 1930s, of whom it was said that “he sat on the fence so long that the iron entered his soul”. To that list must be added Sir Ed Davey, whose whole histrionic being exudes embarrassment and mediocrity. Yet he could be the kingmaker in a hung Parliament after the next election, a fate our nation does not deserve.
Praise for 'Pressure' film
The new film Pressure, about a taciturn Scottish meteorologist whose crucial forecasts could decide the fate of D-Day, is a masterpiece. Brendan Fraser is superb as the chain-smoking, bullish but thoughtful Eisenhower, and Andrew Scott gives the performance of a lifetime as Dr James Stagg. But perhaps the highest praise should go to the actor David Haigh, who wrote the original play. I never knew he was a man of such remarkable talents.
