Letters: The Chancellor sees the necessity of weaning Britain off cheap money

SIR – The Chancellor’s mini-Budget was long overdue and came after a gradual and sustained increase in the tax burden to the highest level since the Second World War, with economic growth dropping as a result.

For years the economy has been fed on cheap money at the expense of those foolish enough to try to save at derisory interest rates. For the economy to be sustainable in the long term a substantial adjustment is needed; money has to be priced at a level equitable to both borrower and saver.

To achieve this, the world of work must be freed from excessive taxation and regulation to make it pay for employer and employee alike. The Chancellor’s plans are a start. His proposed simplification of IR35 rules will have a big impact, but this has hardly had a mention amid all the brouhaha about sterling.

We live in a competitive world. For Britain to succeed it needs a dynamic wealth-creating sector. We have been struggling under the growing load of regulation and taxation but at last have a Government determined to fix this. It must keep up the good work.

Alastair MacMillan
Port Glasgow, Renfrewshire

SIR – Do the doom-mongers not remember the 364 economists who rubbished Margaret Thatcher’s economic policy?

Terry Waters
Nether Whitacre, Warwickshire

SIR – The theory is that these policies will restore London to its position as financial capital of the world, generate wealth that will filter down and enable “levelling up”, and encourage grateful Red Wall areas to vote Conservative. This is by no means impossible.

All the same, it is well to remember that former Labour ministers, such as Tony Benn and Barbara Castle, who were efficient in day-to-day affairs, were the last British politicians to be wholly obsessed by theory – with catastrophic results.

Richard Lloyd-Jones
Eastbourne, East Sussex

SIR – The electorate won’t judge Liz Truss on how much the richest now have to spend, it’ll judge her on how much working people end up with. If she merely succeeds in widening the gap between the richest and the poorest she will be toast at the next election, and rightly so.

Jenny Furness
Doncaster, South Yorkshire

SIR – I was a financial adviser for 22 years and am cynical about current low interest rates. In November 1979 the base rate was 17 per cent. In September 1991 it was 10.38 per cent.

We have become used to very low interest rates. With worldwide inflation, increases aren’t surprising.

Alastair Clarke
Leamington Spa, Warwickshire

SIR – The Bank of England said on Monday it would “not hesitate” to raise rates (report, September 27).

I think it just did.

Alan Frost
Bournemouth, Dorset

Costs of fracking

SIR – I’m glad that Gloria Havenhand (Letters, September 26) has raised some red flags regarding the consequences of pursuing fracking in Britain.

Another that she did not mention became apparent when Third Energy turned up near my parents’ home in North Yorkshire some years ago. Aside from the upheaval caused by the fracking company, throngs of protesters also arrived at the site.

As the idyllic rural environment was trashed, my parents considered moving away, only to find that the value of their home had plummeted by 50 per cent due to the proximity of the fracking site – a potential loss of more than £100,000.

While “Luddites” may be a convenient term for Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Business Secretary, to use to describe those opposed to fracking, I have no doubt that such people will feel a lot more amenable when he produces black-and-white guarantees for environmental protection, and a fully accessible compensation framework for those who suffer financial loss as a result of fracking activity.

Andrew Woodward
Chonburi, Thailand

Migration and skills

SIR – Nick Timothy is right to ask the question: when will the Tories realise that mass migration is making us poor (Comment, September 26)?

The larger number of migrants from rest of the world, who have replaced migrants from the European Union, are not obviously filling the skills shortage.

If these migrants are not gainfully employed, how are they paying their way – from extended family, the state, or is there another part of the economy about which we do not know?

We currently have the worst of both worlds – increased migration and a continuing skills shortage.

Tristram C Llewellyn Jones
Church Stretton, Shropshire

Shine of the times

SIR – Further to my letter published in April 2021 on the discontinuation of shoe polish in all Waitrose stores, on a visit to Waitrose on Monday I found that shoe polish is now being stocked again.

Is this a sign that we are getting out of our work-from-home trainers and going back to the office?

Richard Preston
Maidenhead, Berkshire

Back to Labour

SIR – It’s beginning to feel a lot like 1963 and 1997, both of which I remember well. What followed was inevitably a Labour government.

The first of these Labour prime ministers assured me that the pound in my pocket had not been devalued – it had. The second assured me that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – there weren’t.

Brian Hooper
Tiverton, Devon

SIR – When will the Labour Party – and the BBC – recognise that people who earn more than £150,000 per year actually do work for a living?

Every time taxation is mentioned, the “working man” is always worse off than someone who pays 45 per cent tax. As many NHS GPs and consultants pay this level of tax, you would think Labour might recognise the benefits of supporting them with a tax cut, despite not acknowledging them as “workers”.

Ken Abbott
Telford, Shropshire

SIR – Without wealth creators, Labour can’t afford a socialist agenda.

John McLaren
Farnham, Surrey

SIR – Sir Keir Starmer is clearly living in a parallel universe: his aspiration for a fossil-fuel free electricity system by 2030 is a fantasy (report, September 27). He obviously knows little about the geography of Britain. He should acquaint himself with the Orkney Islands, which need diesel generators for back-up when the wind blows too hard and the sun doesn’t shine.

Graham W Swift
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire

King Charles’s model

SIR – Your report on Charles III’s new cypher (September 27) says that the King has chosen to feature the Tudor Crown as a nod to his grandfather, George VI. However, your gallery of cyphers of recent monarchs shows that Charles’s is actually an exact replica of the Tudor Crown used as part of the cypher of Edward VII.

This suggests that King Charles is recognising the similarity between his own situation and that of his great-great grandfather: a somewhat elderly king succeeding to the throne after the very lengthy reign of a Queen.

Edward VII, like Charles III, was a sometimes controversial Prince of Wales, who became an immensely popular king. Perhaps King Charles is hoping that history will repeat itself.

Given that Edward became known as Edward the Peacemaker for his positive impact on foreign relations, especially with France, and there is already talk that King Charles’s first state visit will be to France, there are signs that he might be mirroring him.

Catherine Pepinster
London W13

Eton v Harrow U-turn

SIR – I am pleased that the Oxford v Cambridge and Eton v Harrow cricket matches will continue to be played at Lord’s in 2023 (report, September 27).

Although an MCC member since 1978, I have no interest in attending either match, but I support the continuation of these historic fixtures.

History and tradition are the MCC’s backbone. Without them, the club loses its global standing.

Tim Oldfield
Wye, Kent

SIR – The hard lesson the committee of the MCC must learn is that it should run the club for the members, not in spite of them. We need a major clear-out of this self-righteous clique.

Andrew Dyke
London N21

A year of plenty for early-bird sloe foragers

SIR – Unlike Simon Warde (Letters, September 27), we have had such an abundance of sloes – ripe and ready more than a month early – that we decided we had picked enough and left the rest for other foragers.

C Roberts
Penmaenmawr, Conwy

SIR – In the Ribble Valley we are inundated – I have never seen so many sloes or ones as big.

Plenty of sloe gin ahead.

Robin M Phoenix
Gisburn, Lancashire

SIR – Fed up with the lack of sloes in the mown hedgerows, we planted our own “sloe lane” (Letters, September 27) in the garden, which is doing very well.

Jacky Staff
Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh

SIR – Simon Warde may have missed this year’s harvest.

I picked six pounds’ worth on August 30, weeks earlier than usual.

Caroline Mackie
Oxton, Nottinghamshire

SIR – It has been an exceptional year for sloes and blackberries. I have two of jars of blackberry whisky brewing.

Dee Bentham
Harlech, Merionethshire

SIR – Not only have we had bumper crops of sloes and blackberries, but my plum and apple trees have also never been so heavily laden.

Adrian Waller
Woodsetts, South Yorkshire

SIR – Sweet chestnuts (Letters, September 27) are also growing in Richmond Park. They should be left for the deer, who need to build up body weight for winter after the rut.

Graham Clifton
Kingston upon Thames, Surrey

NHS clinic chaos leaves patients out in the cold

SIR – Last Saturday Fakenham Medical Practice held an appointment-only vaccination clinic.

It started 45 minutes late. Within three and a half hours the queue had become more than two hours long, traffic was backed-up around the town and the police had to be called to control it.

This was for a cohort that includes the clinically vulnerable and the over-75s, all of whom were expected to wait outside for hours.

I do not know how many did not attempt it or gave up, but the practice still cannot offer a date for its next clinic for these vulnerable people That’s the NHS for you.

Colin Vogel
Fakenham, Norfolk

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