"HatTip" - Promises, Promises

In case you missed it, there was an election recently.
And in the 12 months leading up to it, a lot of promises were made. Will they be kept?

The Labour Party seemed to spend the dreadful Mansion Tax about 15 times over. The LibDems... well, I was not listening to their promises. Come on, hands up - neither were you.

As for the Conservatives, one has the feeling they were making promises on the assumption they
would not have a working majority. But they do and now cannot blame the LibDems or "the coalition" for promises broken.

Here are some of the nice things the Conservatives have dangled before us:

• not to raise Income Taxes
• to take the family home out of the Inheritance Tax system
• to increase the Income Tax personal allowance
• to increase the 40% Income Tax threshold.

So where is the money coming from?

Heaven knows. These tasty tax-breaks will cost HMRC a lot of (our) money. Sadly, however, we already spend more on servicing the interest on the National Debt than we do on our armed forces. So borrowing yet more to pay for these pre-election treats is not an option.

Maybe the Government really will take the axe to some parts of the bloated public sector. I doubt it has the courage or vision to do what is needed.

I will let the bean counters at the Treasury try and square the circle on the numbers. Good luck with that, fellas.

Soooo... if we cannot expect promises made to be promises kept what should our expectations be? Setting the bar fairly low would help.

How about a period of calm, of little or no change, especially with regard to financial services. If our elected betters did nothing in this Parliament (I know, I know) that in itself would be a notable achievement. For example, it would be lovely if the nearly-still-brand-new system of pension and ISA rules and reliefs has a chance to breathe before being tinkered with.

Well, it is always better to travel in hope...

It would be a brave Chancellor who was seen to be doing nothing. It would also be a wise one.