What does a government budget look like when it acts like a “grown-up” in a country that is still rich but in debt and has an inextricable tax code? It is perhaps not from the French side, whose future new government will have to dispatch the 2025 budget, that we should expect the answer this autumn. But on the other side of the Channel, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has two months, between now and 30 October, to get the new Labour government off to a good start. Will the Social Democrats of Keir Starmer, a Labour member with an austere tone who has promised to put an end to the histrionic policies of his predecessors and to combine social justice and wealth creation, be up to the task? Perhaps more complicated than it seems…
For the time being, in this week of returning to school, the British feel hunted by the “taxman” as in the Beatles song of the same name: “If you try to sit down, I’ll tax your seat (…). If you go out for a walk, I’ll tax your feet.”
