On the day Oasis announced their hugely anticipated comeback tour after 15 long years, much to the joy of millions in the UK and around the world, new Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer spoke from the Rose Garden at Number 10 Downing Street.
Some might say it was rather depressing.
A ‘painful’ budget
The upcoming budget isn’t until the 30th of October and schools in England haven’t yet returned. Neither has Parliament. Yet the new PM decided now would be a good time to start to warn the country that the budget coming up the day before Halloween is going to be a ‘painful’ one. You can already feel the Halloween-related front pages being written now in relation to the announcements Chancellor Rachel Reeves is likely to come out with.
After saying throughout the election campaign that there were no plans to raise taxes, it looks like that is what Labour is about to do. The PM said on Tuesday that the economic situation was worse than he thought and that they found a £22bn black hole in the public finances that they were previously unaware of. However, there is mounting evidence that this was not the case and they knew about it months prior to the election. But why let facts stand in the way of a good narrative?
We already have a flavour of what is to come. We know that the Winter Fuel Allowance for pensioners is being scrapped, despite pressure from Labour backbenchers not to do so. It looks as though the triple-lock on pensions is about to undergo some “reforms”, again hitting the elderly. Tax rises look almost certain. Inheritance tax and capital gains tax look like they are on the menu for rises.
If you can, cast your minds back to 2010 and the formation of the coalition government between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. They came into power off the back of the financial crisis which nearly crippled the world’s economy. At the time they ushered in an age of austerity and cuts in order to balance the books. At the time, when Labour was in opposition, they fought against those measures and proudly claimed that the cuts and austerity measures were a political choice and that there were better alternatives to growing the UK economy. Fast-forward fourteen years and the positions have reversed and it looks like Labour are going to do the exact same as the previous Government, despite pushing the narrative that there were other alternatives. It looks like we’re going to be getting Labour’s version of austerity.
Terrible timing
What has struck me is the ineptitude of the timing of such a depressing speech. Even the most dour of Tory PMs in the past have managed to put a slightly positive spin on things when they have had to go to the public to deliver less-than-happy news. Keir Starmer said “hold my beer” and managed to make them all look frankly very positive.
For the fenestration sector specifically, this is not good timing. We have gone through a pretty tepid summer. The build-up to the General Election saw a marked reduction in business activity from the end of May up to polling day. Then we went headlong into the summer school holidays which is our naturally quiet period anyway. Then we had Darth Starmer pile the misery on with his ‘painful budget’ warning two whole months out from the actual budget. What is likely to happen now is businesses may continue to sit on their hands until they know what changes are going to be made in the budget, and homeowners may delay spending on big-ticket items until they too know what is going to change in terms of their personal finances.
It is going to make the next couple of months rather tricky, just at the time when the usually reliable pre-Christmas rush begins just as the kids go back to school.
The fenestration sector has to remain proactive. I have noticed over the last couple of months that there are a lot more companies engaged in consistent marketing activities which is good to see. Both at the installer and fabricator level. Hopefully, those efforts are paying off, and if they are, then they need to continue. We have to have a recession mindset if we are to navigate what looks like is going to be Labour’s age of austerity.
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