This opinion column was published in the Whitehaven News on the 12th November 2025, and in the Times and Star on the 13th November 2025.
I don’t think I can recall a time ever when a budget has been so anticipated and been speculated on as much as the budget the chancellor will deliver in two weeks’ time.
It is fear and foreboding that is driving the speculation, certainly not any kind of optimism, as it is becoming ever clearer the chancellor is not only going to break Labours pre-election manifesto commitments but is also going to bin her emphatic commitment she made after the last budget that she would not be coming back for more following last October’s mind-boggling tax hikes.
The run up to this budget is also causing significant damage to the economy as the government are flying so many kites as to what they may do it is causing huge uncertainty, leading many people to make what could possibly turn out to be bad decisions based on what they think the government might do.
A good example is the speculation the government may reduce the tax-free lump sum that can be taken from an individual’s pension fund. If this is not their intention, they should have crushed that story months ago and publicly ruled it out, instead we have seen billions of pounds being withdrawn from pension funds that would otherwise have remained invested.
I think there are many people around the country who do not realise the massive impact the last budget tax grab of including stock market linked pensions into the inheritance tax calculation will have, once again in this budget the government will punish prudence and those who have worked hard to provide a comfortable retirement, with punitive taxes changes likely to impact pension and ISA contributions, which will hit those nearing retirement and further disincentivize younger people from saving for their future.
If the current speculation about reducing salary sacrifice for pension contributions is true, it will also hit employers hard yet again despite the fact they are still reeling from last years NI increases (the jobs tax) and wilting under the new workers rights bill, which will almost certainly cost jobs and continue to see unemployment rise under this government as it has done every single month since it took office.
You cannot tax your way to prosperity and this government is on a mission to prove it, they are crushing aspiration and creating a dependency culture and like every socialist government they will eventually run out of someone else’s money.
What they will not do is exactly what they should do and rein in government spending, that is now out of the question as the PM has lost his grip on the party whose direction and agenda is being driven by left wing back benchers whose policies if they had been in the Labour manifesto for government would never have got them elected.
The last two Labour governments on leaving office were out of power for 18 years and 14 years, for the current one I suspect it will be much longer.
