It’s a welcome change to hear the Chancellor talk about Britain’s prospects – but voters want immediate action

Hunt’s punt

It’s certainly a welcome change to hear the Chancellor speak optimistically about Britain’s prospects. Few are brave enough to do so now.

Jeremy Hunt even said that those who despair of our future, or even our present, are flat out wrong. Our growth, he emphasizes, is no worse than that of Germany and better than that of France.

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This was a far happier hunt than the funeral director who parachuted into the Treasury Department last year to calm markets.

Back then, he delivered somber sermons on the impact of Covid, war and, yes, the mini-budget under Liz Truss.

But he and Rishi Sunak HAVE stabilized the ship – although we still borrow huge sums of money to stay afloat.

And it was refreshing to hear his optimism about a new UK ‘Silicon Valley’ of tech startups and entrepreneurship.

Our Brexit freedoms, he said, are key to boosting flagging productivity and growth. . . pretty much the admission of a former Remain activist.

His ambition for “the most competitive tax system of any major country” was music to our ears, too.

But, Mr. Hunt, when will that happen?

We agree that reducing inflation must trump immediate tax cuts.

But what we’re seeing is the tax burden at a 70-year high – and the chancellor himself is raising corporate taxes by 6 percent in April. How attractive is that to the companies he wants?

Factor in our inability to build enough affordable housing for workers, and Mr. Hunt’s Silicon Valley looks a long way off.

Likewise, his quest to lure easy early retirees back into the workplace will remain a pipe dream without tangible incentives like pension tax breaks.

And frankly, any talk of a bright future with still rising prices, lagging wages and the NHS in chaos rings hollow.

Voters want immediate action in that direction, and when the time comes, bigger tax cuts and real growth to make us all better off.

The Tories may have little time to achieve any of this.

train shame

WE do not agree with Mr. Hunt that it is a “national disgrace” that Japan opened its first high-speed rail some 70 years before us.

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What IS is that HS2 was always a dubious idea, now may never do what it set out to do and may have tripled in cost.

It gets embarrassing when it turns out to be pointless, archaic and unused, as we suspect.

And the nation regrets that the overwhelming prize was not wisely spent.

Had enough of us

AS-Diesel fell 32p a liter in the wholesale market, the pump price fell just 20p.

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Clear evidence that drivers are routinely ripped off.

This Pumpwatch monitor can’t come soon enough.