Hello my lovelies. It’s Dishi Rishi here. Given the country’s current shortage of manpower, one of the announcements I am going to make in my Budget speech on Wednesday is that everyone is going to have to get an additional part-time, manual job. You can see here that I have chosen to be a post-man. My first choice was to be an HGV driver, but I really struggled to reach the pedals!
I can’t believe that it is over a year since I last wrote to you. With the Budget coming up on Wednesday, I thought I would give you a bit of a heads-up on what is going to appear. I know I shouldn’t be telling you state secrets, but hey … what is Boris going to do about it? Fire me? I don’t think so!
Let’s face it, I have done a jolly good job since I took over as Chancellor of the Exchequer in February 2020, haven’t I? Everyone was saying back then that the wheels were falling off. Now, they are screaming for more wheels - to shift all our stuff around the country. There is just no pleasing some people. I’ve got nine points to cover, all of which, I am sure you will agree, show me in terrific light:
1. Debt. I have had such a great time over the past twenty months leading the Government’s fabulous Spend-Athon. The tax-take was never going to be enough for a big-spender like me, so I have got through mega-tonnes of debt too. In fact, I have done so well that our public debt is now up to 97.6% of GDP. Isn’t that great? It’s the highest level since the glorious year of 1963. To tell you the truth, I am rather hooked on this spending thing now. So much so, in fact, that I am about to start another incredibly exciting project. I will be announcing it on Wednesday, and I will be calling it Rishi’s Tax-Athon. Everyone is going to be able to join in. It will be so much fun.
2. Office-Return. Did you see that newspaper article a couple of weeks ago which reckons that weekend travellers to London are back to about 80% of their pre-pandemic level? Of course, that’s great news for London’s hospitality, leisure and retail sectors. But here is the bad news. Apparently, the travel rate during the working week is only 60%. I think you know what that means. So, expect my Budget to give work-shy workers, starting with my own people at The Treasury, a right old kick up the backside on Wednesday.
3. Net Zero. The good thing about Boris preparing for the COP26 Conference in Glasgow next week is that he hasn’t had time to stick his nose into my affairs. Everyone knows that he has staked his reputation on this climate conference being a success. That's a BIG call. In fact, when I saw him last night wandering around No 10 muttering Chinese expletives in his dog-chewed slippers, I told him that I really didn’t fancy being in his shoes. Naturally, I didn’t mean it, as I would very much like to be in his shoes … perhaps one day, maybe … soon!
4. Truss (Liz). Which brings me on to the Rt Honourable Member for South-West Norfolk, the recently appointed Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss. Who does she think she is? If she plans to take me on for the PM-ship when Boris hangs up his boots/gets fired, as the press is hinting at, she had better think again. I wonder if you can guess how much I am going to allocate to her Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in this week’s Budget? That’s right. Net-Zero. Serves her right for stepping into my lime-light!
5. Property Rates. Give me a break! It is true that the Government promised a review of business rates in 2019, and whilst everyone knows the system is broken and on-line businesses have an unfair advantage, after reliefs, business rates raise a stonking £25 billion each year in England alone. Frankly the whole thing is just far too difficult to resolve. So, I am going to announce the next best thing – another review. Take it or leave it!
6. Availability of jobs. Did you know the unemployment rate (over 16 years old) is now down to 1,510,000 people (4.5%) and there are currently 1,102,000 job vacancies? If Kwasi Kwarteng, as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, did his job properly instead of trying to persuade me to bail out every unviable business, and he could get all the unemployed into the vacant jobs, we would all be ‘quid’s in’. I know it’s not going to happen. And, if he thinks Priti is going to open the borders to allow in more immigrants to fill the gap, he is deluded. How will my Budget address this uncomfortable impasse? Answer. It won’t, other than the whizzo second job scheme I mentioned above.
7. North Yorkshire. As you know ‘levelling-up’ is at the very heart of this Government’s agenda. Of course we cannot be expected to do it all at once. So, I shall be announcing (yet another) new, unbelievably and incredibly exciting pilot scheme for super-pump-priming the economy of a town, Up North, chosen at random. We will be allocating the lucky winner ‘loadsa money’ and we are delighted that Harry Enfield has agreed to be the chairman of the spending committee. After a couple of years, we will assess how the pilot scheme has gone and we can then decide which, if any, other hard-pressed towns may be short-listed for grants. (Ed. The Weekly has been assured that the fact that the chosen pilot town, Richmond, which is also Rishi's Parliamentary Constituency, is completely coincidental).
8. Infrastructure. You know how much I like economically viable infrastructure projects, but we have hit a bit of a snag, haven’t we? We simply don’t have enough HGV drivers to deliver the materials to sites, nor enough labourers to do the hard work when the materials get there. So, you should expect the knife to come out on Wednesday. I haven’t finally decided yet which projects are going to get the chop, but none of the current mega-schemes are safe. The fact that I don’t have the money to fund them anyway is by-the-by and unequivocally not my fault. If only the Local Government Pension Funds were prepared to ramp up their allocations to the sector, as I have consistently told them to, then we would have bags of dosh… and I could then also afford to give MPs (or at least the Conservative ones) a decent pay rise too.
9. Christmas. There has been a lot of hot air in the news lately about prospective shortages of food on the supermarket shelves at Christmas. Take it from me, it’s one big conspiracy by the retailers to scare everyone into shopping early. Can you guess what my final message on Wednesday will be? It is very relevant to the run-up to Christmas. Okay, if you take the first letter from each of my nine headings above, you will have it! As a clue, my TV hero, Corporal Jones of Dad’s Army fame, would be very proud of me.
Speak soon.
Lots of Love
Rishi xxx
PS. Don’t forget to watch the Budget and have a great Sunday. And whatever you do, DON’T PANIC!!