It has been an interesting day for economic news which is mixed. On the positive side, the rate of inflation has dropped from about 2.2% to 1.7% which is much bigger drop than predicted. This news will be particularly welcomed by the government as the September figure is the one that is used to uprate some benefits next April and this lower rate of inflation will lower the total bill. It also makes a decrease in the Bank rate slightly more likely as well. The more grim economic news is that the £22 billion black hole that the government argue is the legacy left by the last Tory government has just grown to £40 billion. The government is saying that this increased figure is necessary to ensure that deep cuts are not made to departments across the board. It might be that Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, will be able to magic up some money when she presents her budget in two weeks time. There is some talk of a highly technical nature of calculating government debt in a slightly different way that gives the government some unspecified billions to play with. I seem to remember that George Osborne when he was Chancellor managed to find £8 billion from the back of the proverbial (government) sofa and Rachel Reeves may be trying to emulate this. But it is a cast iron certainty that there will be pain for higher level tax payers when the budget is announced and adjustment to the ways that pension 'pots' are taxed may be the clue here. Historically, we may be aware of the famous quote attributed to Louis XIV’S finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who famously declared that 'the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.' When it comes to taxing companies, a modern finance minister might rephrase this as 'the largest possible amount of revenue with the smallest possible amount of economic and political damage.' If we had to find new sources of revenue, I have thought it should have been possible to have taxed each Amazon delivery by a small amount. You would have thought it was easy to have found the number of deliveries that Amazon make in the UK each year but if the information is out there, it is really obscured. I have managed to find out share of the market, global figures including the USA but a simple figure like UK deliveries evades me. On a conservative estimate based upon sales, though, I should think that 50p on each of £20 billion of UK deliveries would generate £10 billion whereas a 1p increase in income tax, by way of comparison, would generate approx £5 billion in revenue. These are very much back of the envelope approximations but one gets the idea. After breakfast, which was a little delayed this morning, we decided just to make a quick trip down to Waitrose to pick up our newspaper and a supply of milk. We were delighted to bump into our Irish friend whose husband was having an investigation under general anaesthetic yesterday morning. But his wife informed us, to our delight, that she had got him home safe and sound at 1.30 in the afternoon, the procedure had gone well and her husband was not in any pain or discomfort afterwards which is surely a relief all round. Our friend also kindly gave me a rainproof guard that I can put over Meg if it comes on to rain very hard when I am pushing her down the hill.She does get wrapped up quite warmly with our huge and newly acquired Russian military blanket across her knees, a windproof and rainproof jacket on, a Manchester University scarf dating back to 1965 and a little multi-coloured crochet blanket across her knees which Meg likes to poke her fingers through. When we got back, the carers came for their late morning call and the to the younger ones who have read any of the Harry Potter stories of J K Rowling, I show the Hogwart's blanket (now used as a decoration on the back of our sofa) and explain the meaning of the four word Latin motto of 'Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus' ('Never tickle a sleeping dragon') The carers often joke with me that they always leave the house just that little bit wiser than when they entered.
We lunched on the remains of the spicy chicken with a baked potato and some broccoli finished off with some nicely flavoured yogurt. Over lunch we idly popped onto YouTube and were delighted to continue the viewing that we had of 'The Genius of Mozart' which we had started viewing yesterday but the viewing was interrupted by a call from the carers. I always learn something new about the life of Mozart and I learned a little more today about 'The Magic Flute' which does not have the wit and sophistication and, dare I say, political undertones of 'The Marriage of Figaro' (which had to be taken off after only nine performances as the portrayal of servants getting the better of their aristocratic masters made the Viennese audience of the time rather uncomfortable) In 'The Magic Flute' specifically written for a German audience but knowing that the skill set of the orchestral members was not of the highest, Mozart deliberately made much of the score less demanding so that it would not be beyond the capabilities of the orchestra playing for the opera. Yesterday afternoon, we noticed on YouTube a quick advert for the J B Priestley play 'An Inspector Calls' and although we have seen it lots of times before, we never fail to enjoy it. This play is a favourite with amateur dramatic companies because all of the action takes place in one middle class dining room but the play is gripping in its intensity. The author, J B Priestley, makes no pretence of his socialist leanings as he ruthlessly strips away middle class pretensions and hypocrisy. I mentioned it to some of the carers who knew of the play because they had read it at school and, indeed on YouTube, when the viewing was ended there were some other offerings such as 'Pass Notes' to help teenage viewers make intelligent comments upon the play in subsequent examinations. I find it interesting to note that sometimes Meg can get well and truly absorbed in these quite detailed scenarios that we view in the afternoon including a viewing of 'Room with a View' with an outstanding cast that we viewed recently on 'Film on 4' catchup under the Channel4 banner on our smart TV.
© Mike Hart [2024]