What’s in a word
Dear Max,
The HM Gov budget speech is never the most scintillating broadcast and listening to Jeremy Hunt last week was an exercise in concentration and, needless to say, I found my mind wondering.
Did you know that Budget is taken from the French word Bougette meaning “small leather bag “ which practically speaking is just that but has over the years changed into a Red leather box.
The concept of a budget was first introduced by Sir Robert Walpole in his early 1720’s Government following a crisis when the South Sea Company crashed known as the “South Sea Bubble “. It was feared that many investors succumbed to the bubble and in fact Sir Isaac Newton was reported to have lost £40m in today’s money.
The longest time recorded at the dispatch box by a Chancellor was 5 hours by Disraeli in 1852 and probably due to castigation by his colleagues after this marathon the shortest was also by Disraeli timed at 45 minutes in 1867.
The Chancellor has the unique Parliamentary benefit of being allowed to take alcohol during his dispatch which many Chancellors have taken advantage of but not all.
The most infamous Budget speech was by George Ward in 1868 when having stepped up to the dispatch box realised that he had left the Red box at home !
Income tax was introduced in 1798 to fund the Napoleonic wars and was removed and then reintroduced several times until modern times when it is readily if not reluctantly accepted.
Interestingly the Speaker always steps down on Budget day and the Deputy Speaker officiates.
The content of the Chancellors Budget has in the past been shrouded in secrecy ( although not recently ) but it is not so long ago that this attitude for the details were respected when one Piers Morgan then Editor of The Daily Mirror returned a near complete copy of Kenneth Clarke’s Budget without publication.
You might also like to know that Tax freedom day ( the day we stop working for the Chancellor and start working for ourselves ) is now the 18th of June this year ?
I have a feeling you might be on a racecourse that day.
With best wishes,
David
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