.png)
.png)
By the time you read this, Rachel Reeves will have delivered her Budget.
Unfortunately, our printing schedule means that I have to write this several days before her speech. So what should I do? It would seem odd not to mention the Budget at all, but at the same time it would be difficult to comment on something which hasn’t happened. I suppose that I could take a guess and write a piece on her surprise move (say) to abolish business asset disposal relief. If she has actually done that, you would no doubt be congratulating me on my powers of foresight – but it risks me having egg all over my face if she hasn’t actually scrapped it. So perhaps discretion is the better part of valour.
In a way I have been here before. I used to write concert reviews for our local paper. I remember once feeling tired and rather bored after the first half of the concert so I went home during the interval. My review concentrated on what had happened in the first half but did mention some of the music to be played in the second half.
I remember feeling very uncomfortable when I sent in my review. What happens if they had changed the programme at short notice or, more seriously, the conductor had fallen ill and had to abandon the rest of the concert. I worried so much that I would get found out. Fortunately, nothing untoward happened and my subterfuge wasn’t discovered. But I never did it again.
The best way of dealing with this sort of issue remains the solution adopted by Alistair Cooke, which I mentioned in a previous editorial (‘Reality can be extraordinary’). That ‘the rest you know’ was a stroke of genius.
If you do one thing…
Take a deep breath – you are going to need plenty of stamina to deal with post-Budget calls from clients!
