Sir James Dyson, the billionaire businessman, has launched a scathing attack on Rishi Sunak’s government, saying his “short-sighted” and “stupid” economic policies have left the country in a state of “Covid inertia”.
The founder of the eponymous vacuum cleaner company said that “growth has become a dirty word” under the current leadership and that on current trends the average British family will be poorer than a Polish family by 2030.
Dyson, a prominent Brexit supporter, criticized the government’s “increasing tax bills” for the private sector and regulations, saying it was imposing “tax after tax on companies in the belief that penalizing the private sector is a free win at the ballot box”.
“This is as short-sighted as it is stupid,” Dyson wrote in the Telegraph on Thursday. “In a global economy, companies will simply choose to transfer jobs and invest elsewhere. Our country has a remarkable history of entrepreneurship and innovation, born of a culture we are in the process of destroying. We’ve seen the worst of Covid, but we risk squandering the recovery.”
Dyson said the government’s failure to bring workers back into the office after the pandemic had “severely damaged the work ethic in the country”, arguing that face-to-face interaction was important, including for training new and young staff. He also claimed that the growth of his business, which makes vacuum cleaners, fans and hair dryers, has happened largely “in spite of the government, not because of it”.
However, he concluded that “it is not too late for Britain to shake off its Covid momentum” if the government acts quickly. “Starting with the spring budget in March, he must boost private innovation and demonstrate his ambition for growth,” Dyson wrote.
The government is under pressure to cut taxes for households and businesses in the spring budget to avoid a damaging and protracted recession.
However, Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, is planning a “watered-down” budget without immediate tax cuts, Treasury insiders said. Hunt will instead focus on restoring economic confidence and reducing inflation after the damage done by his predecessor Kwasi Kwarteng under the Liz Truss government.
But MPs loyal to Liz Truss’s tax-cutting agenda began forming a new ‘Conservative Growth Group’ ahead of the fiscal statement to pressure the Treasury to cut taxes – and suggested Truss herself might to speak for the first time before the budget.
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UK annual inflation eased slightly to 10.5% in December from 10.7% in November, but remained high. The economy grew by 0.1% in November and may have avoided a recession at the end of 2022, but could still slip into recession in coming months as interest rates rise to tame high inflation.
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