Keeping track of the 2024 promises
It will pay for financial media to start tracking all the 2024 election promises, Edmund Greaves writes, as October ushers in political conferences and vital economic data, providing a glimpse into what lies ahead.
It feels like we’ve entered the election countdown with major political parties setting out increasingly focused policies.
While there’s plenty there for us in financial media to ignore, quite a lot of pronouncements from both Conservatives, Labour and the LibDems are relevant to our beats.
These include (but aren’t exhaustive):
- Conservatives cutting or scrapping inheritance tax
- Conservatives tinkering with ISAs (uh oh)
- Labour promising to put VAT on private school fees
- LibDems dropping their 1p income tax hike
October as months go doesn’t have critical stuff in the diary, other than conference season (which my colleague Paul Montague-Smith has covered in greater detail and insight than I can produce) but it is the month before the Autumn Statement, which is due on 22 November.
As such, October is going to be a month of pronouncements, flag flying and general water testing for the temperature of reactions from both media and the public.
Why does this matter when most of it is just ideas? For starters, we’re beginning to get an insight into what life will be like come a new Government in 2024.
The convention is to go to the polls on a Thursday. This means that we can have a result on the Friday and the new Prime Minister can ask the King for permission to form a Government – with ministers then announced and feet under the table by Monday morning…raring to go.
These promises are always and entirely made with asterisks though. Recession, bank collapse, pandemic, war – all of these things have and could again put manifestos in the bin.
So prepare we do, but always in mind that all that copy might be a futile exercise in tracking things that never happen.
This month we’re largely focused on on-diary data prints.
The Conservative Party Annual Conference begins on 1 October while the Labour Party Conference begins on 8 October. This is the same day that the FCA new rules for marketing cryptoassets take effect.
On 10 October the IMF releases its World Economic Outlook alongside its Global Financial Stability Report.
ONS monthly GDP estimates are on 12 October while unemployment and wages are on 17 October, inflation is on 18 October, the same day as the ONS House Price Index.
Finally, the day before Halloween (30 October), the Bank of England publishes its monthly Money and Credit data. Hopefully it won’t be a spooky or frightful one, but we can’t make any promises, can we?
All the best wishing you a productive Autumn from us here at MRM and Mouthy Money.