Philip Hammond: Not telling the whole truth.

Wouldn’t it be pleasant if, once in a while, a Conservative government would release a major statement in which we didn’t have to dredge out all the nasty little surprises hidden in the small print?

Spring Statement day – March 13, 2018 – was not that day.

For a start, did you know we’ll be paying for Brexit until 2064? That’s 46 years from now! I’ll be 95 years old – and still paying for the mistakes made by a majority of people who will be long-dead by then. The only light at the end of that tunnel is the possibility of having a vote to go back into the EU, and get out from under that debt burden.

Oh, and all that talk of having eliminated the deficit? It turns out that was just talk. In fact, there is expected to be a budget deficit of £21.4 billion by 2022-23, making it highly unlikely that the books will be balanced by 2025, as predicted by Philip Hammond. If you recall, George Osborne said he’d balance the books by 2015, so the Tories are already 10 years behind their own schedule – because their policies don’t work. Still, neither Mr Osborne nor Mr Hammond will be particularly bothered – both will be long gone by 2025 and won’t have to face up to the cost of their stupidity.

There are other stingers too – the so-called ‘Sugar Tax’ was supposed to raise £520 million that would be spent on school sports, but that amount has been revised down because food companies have rewritten their recipes to use less sugar, thus dodging the requirement to pay. Now only £240 million is expected to be paid in 2018-19. It’s bad for school sport – but good for youngsters’ health.

I bet there are more that even the experts haven’t spotted.

Tories are past masters at the creation of so-called “unintended consequences”. One wonders how “unintended” they really are.

Source: 5 surprises in the Spring Statement 2018 small print that Philip Hammond might not want you to read – Mirror Online

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