his comments there about also investing in local infrastructure, this whole question about hs2 and this massive spending on it raises lots of difficult arguments and passions on all sides and one of those issues is the question that some have been saying again today, would this money not be better spent on improving local services, local trains, connections between cities in different parts of the country in the north? the supporters of the hs2 project say if you try to scale back a bit and cut that connection to london it undermines the whole point of it because the point is to get people quickly into london on a new line, free up the other old lines that exist exactly for those local services. so those arguments keep going. the costs and the difficulty for the government, the pressure is the costs are rising, inflation pushes anything up so delivering all this to budget and to time is a very tough ask. joining me now is paul chapman,
generally, so it is cut, which is the expectation that it will be anyway, do we have a government claiming credit in six months time for something it didn t really do much towards? i5 for something it didn t really do much towards? for something it didn t really do much towards? . . . , much towards? is interesting, it was one of rishi much towards? is interesting, it was one of rishi sunak s much towards? is interesting, it was one of rishi sunak s five much towards? is interesting, it was one of rishi sunak s five promises i one of rishi sunak s five promises for the year ahead and politicians don t like to make a promise they cannot keep, and of course he wants to associate that with his regime. the thing with this government is, it is bear with us, we know what we are doing. there won t be a plethora of flashy announcements but give us a year and things will be better. the real issue with that strategy is, does the public have the patience and what is the opposition, both t
to attract investment. the verdict of overseas companies and executives is that britain is an extremely exciting country to invest and grow, and i think we should remember that and not get too sucked up in the latest economic statistics, because this is a difficult patch but we can get through it and there are tremendous opportunities on the other side. but inflation is forecast to half in the next year anyway, not because of anything the government is doing, but because global prices from oil and gas to shipping costs have been plummeting from last year s peaks, and jeremy hunt reversed his predecessor s decision to cut business and personal taxes. the only thing that will improve our growth prospects now is to get rid of the conservatives out of government, because they have shown that they are not fit to govern, they crashed the economy, they are full of sleaze and scandal, and they are the ones that are doing the uk down at the moment. what we need is an optimistic government that
this is bbc news. the headlines. the chancellorjeremy hunt has set out his plan to boost economic growth prioritising reducing inflation and stabilising the economy. the government has committed to the planned hs2 rail link reaching central london despite reports to the contrary due to rising gusts. president biden urges protesters in tennessee to remain peaceful after five former memphis police officers are charged with the murder of a black man, tyre nichols. an nhs trust is fined £800,000 after admitting failures in the care of a mother and her baby, who died 23 minutes after being born. a british teenager has been sentenced to 11 and a half years in prison for producing far right extremist videos that influenced two mass killings in the united states.
negligible because actually we are all just waiting negligible because actually we are alljust waiting for negligible because actually we are all just waiting for the negligible because actually we are alljust waiting for the budget where economic levers can be pulled, or does the messaging out there beforehand really make a difference? it is important to manage expectations and we can see what they are trying to do with this, we heard about the office for budget responsibility going to downgrade some of theirforecasts, responsibility going to downgrade some of their forecasts, we have seen some recent debt data that was worse than had been expected, you re constantly getting the message that it is not great right now. what the political message is, bear with us, it will get better, we will get there. i think the key lesson that jeremy hunt would like people to take away is inflation got equals tax cut. as you were just discussing, inflation is the big story but how much can the govern