Presenting the budget today Rishi Sunak promised a great deal of spending, with few tax rises in sight. It was undeniably the most Keynesian Tory budget since the days of Edward Heath. Perhaps we should not be surprised considering the extent of the pandemic’s economic damage. The Office for Budget Responsibility, while predicting the recovery will be quicker than expected and that the economy would grow by a red-hot 7.3 per cent next year, also said that in 2025 the economy will still be 3 per cent smaller than it would have otherwise been. Â
Dividend recaps: this is not going to end well
An early proponent of dividend recaps – the financial two-step where equity capital is replaced by debt – was Thames Water.