Nothing special

“Well it was a bit dull really” was one colleague’s appraisal of it, “they’re scared of saying anything” was another’s.

‘It’ being the PBR last week.

It’s odd really, where the Queen’s speech seemed to be a pre-election manifesto the PBR was more like a ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ session.

The word ‘debt’ was barely used and although ‘cuts’ had a fair few mentions there was a chronic lack of specifics. Conventional political wisdom (is there such a thing or did I just invent something?) dictates that this is the way forward, but these are far from conventional times, we know some brutal cuts are on the way there might be a case for full disclosure: uncertainty leads to fear and fear leads to drops in the markets (very ‘Yoda like’ I know). The return to 17.5% VAT and lowering of the limit for stamp duty was also rather brushed over (am I the only one who thinks it would have been better to phase in the 2.5% increase? Try and lessen the shock a bit).