Bankers' bonus news might knock down the blue wall

Setting aside the disastrous implementation of the Truss/Kwarteng Budget last year that had to be turned around more quickly than a McDonald's breakfast at 10:59am, one wonders if the Tories want to keep that majority vote it won from the previous red wall voters. 

The lifting of the lifetime allowance, as announced earlier this year, was greeted with gratitude by people who already had a pension provision far in excess of the UK average. 

According to financial comparison site Finder.com, the UK average is currently £69,481.

Hundreds of thousands of people are still mortgage prisoners.

Given that the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association has suggested £23,300 a year is needed just to achieve a moderate standard of living from the retirement age of 66, you'll realise quickly how many millions of Britons are forced to live on the bare minimum a year. 

The news over the LTA was welcomed by personal finance professionals but not the wider public, who felt this was a boost for the well-heeled. 

Now, in the lead-up to the Autumn Statement next month (November 22), there is talk of changes to inheritance tax - where the caps have been changed fewer times than my social media profile pics - and potentially even an eventual abolition. 

And, most recently, the prime minister Rishi Sunak said he intended to push ahead with former PM Liz Truss's plan to axe the cap on bankers' bonuses.

Initially, these moves make sense - house prices have pushed the value of people's assets up far beyond the £325,000 current cap, and we do need to incentivise financial services companies to set up offices, or remain, in the UK. 

Destitution

But coming on top of news from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that approximately 3.8mn people experienced destitution in 2022, including around 1mn children, and the focus on improving tax breaks for the relatively well-off might not be a great political move.

The JRF's latest Destitution Report puts that figure at two-and-a-half times the number of people in 2017, and nearly triple the number of children.

Since the December 2019 general election, Britons have gone through a pandemic and a cost of living crisis, and watched a revolving door of prime ministers and cabinets. 

Hundreds of thousands of people are still mortgage prisoners and facing a bleak Christmas (again) thanks to the pincer grip of rising interest rates and stubbornly high inflation.

While the state pension has grown thanks to the triple lock, HM Revenue & Customs has not mirrored the Department for Work and Pensions' attempts to up-rate benefits to take inflation into account.

This means that the personal allowance stayed at £12,570 this year, remaining at its two-year-old frozen level, punishing more middle-income households in the UK as any wage rises they might have had would have been eroded by taxation and inflation. 

I get the importance of boosting Britain's business and services sectors, and attempts to keep wealth in the country.

But the majority of Britons are not bankers, or wealthy pensioners, or affluent savers. They're families with mortgages, protection needs, seeking help to budget and secure their todays, let alone their tomorrows.

They are also disenchanted, disgruntled and, if the latest YouGov polling is accurate, disappointed with how the government has handled a lot of issues. 

I suspect many will vote for change unless chancellor Jeremy Hunt is able to pull proper help for ordinary people, including mortgage prisoners, out of his hat on November 22.

If he doesn't, he can expect the blue wall to crumble next year. 

Simoney Kyriakou is editor of FTAdviser