There are no free lunches so how will Chancellor foot the bill? – Bill Carmichael

I am sure I am not the only poor taxpayer to ask this crucial question while listening to the Chancellor and Richmond MP Rishi Sunak during his out of season Father Christmas act this week.

This adopted son of Yorkshire announced he was distributing gifts and splashing the cash on the hospitality sector and on house buyers and on pretty much anyone else who needs it.

Cuts in VAT, a £1,000 bonus for every worker kept on after the furlough scheme ends, a stamp duty holiday and 50 per cent off the bill to diners eating out during August.

Lots of lovely presents for everyone! But always remember that eternal 
truth – there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Of course no one could possibly question the need for increased public spending to help businesses, small and large, that are desperately treading water to keep their noses above the flood waters caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

However one thing was missing from the Chancellor’s statement to the House of Commons – where exactly is the money coming from? He announced an extra £30bn to add to the whopping £160bn already spent on the pandemic. Apparently we are going to have to wait for his Autumn Budget in three months’ time to find out.

But I think I can break the suspense. If you want to know who is going to pay for it all, then take a glance in your bathroom mirror and the answer will be staring you in the face – it is you!

Perhaps more accurately, given the terrifying scale of borrowing we are facing, your children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and many future generations reaching into the far distant future.

“Borrowing” is a pleasant sounding euphemism for the theft of resources from future generations because we are unable, or unwilling, to live within our means.

Make no mistake, we’ll be paying the price for this economic disaster for many, many years to come. It will make us all – including future descendants not yet born – far poorer.

Despite what starry-eyed left-wingers will tell you, there is no magic money tree. You can’t just give its branches a shake and be suddenly covered in cash.

Just ask those poor, poverty-stricken desperates in the socialist paradise of Venezuela, eating their pets and scrabbling on rubbish heaps just to try to stay alive. As they could no doubt tell you, everything has to be paid for eventually.

But Mr Sunak is absolutely right to try to limit the damage as far as possible. Once companies close they are unlikely to open up again. And long-term unemployment has a corrosive impact on not just the economy but the moral health of the nation.

We desperately need the economy to keep on growing to provide the taxes that pay for the services – schools, hospitals, transport, support for the poor – that we all value.

I admit I have doubts about Sunak’s decision to massively increase public spending and borrowing in order to rescue the economy. But frankly is there any serious alternative?

Labour Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds wants to put up taxes, which would kill what is left of the economy stone dead in about two minutes flat. An utterly disastrous idea.

Meanwhile the Lib Dems offer no solutions but instead whinge that the economic rescue package is “sexist” because it is directed at male-dominated sectors of the economy like … er … restaurants, hotels and cafes, where, of course, you never see women working.

This is why, ladies and gentlemen, the Conservatives have such a thumping 80-seat majority. It is not because the Tories are especially competent – they are clearly not – but because the opposition is so irredeemably and pathetically useless.

For all its risks Sunak offers the best, and possibly the only, way out of this crisis. We are going to have to bite the bullet and spend what is necessary to keep business afloat and people in work for the long-term benefit of us all.

But don’t for a moment think that the future is going to be easy or pain-free. We have a very long and hard road ahead of us.

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James Mitchinson

Editor