Bar, café and retail jobs are society's heartbeat
Last October, accompanied by Sir Keir Starmer's rhetoric about 'the dignity of work and of every worker', the chancellor's budget embraced a pig-headed manifesto commitment not to touch individual pay packets in a way that would be noticed. It stealthily froze tax thresholds, raised capital gains and hammered family farms — right on top of a disastrous harvest year — but refused to nudge up even slightly the national insurance element that everyone on PAYE sees in their payslip. It was all on employers instead.
This was, frankly, a cosmetic political decision, blowing a kiss to workers and a raspberry to paymasters. But the effect was that while avoiding ripples which might rock little boats it caused a tsunami of lost opportunities. Sure, voters would have grumbled at personal NI rises, maybe reduced consumer spending a bit, but they would soon have got used to the new level. Particularly if chances were visibly burgeoning for everyone in a growing economy.
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