Were you glued to the budget speech this week? writes Lucy Stephens
All my life I’ve had a sneaky feeling I’d be so much more on top of things if only I understood money a little better.
But sadly my grasp of things fiscal falls some way short of ideal.
Put it this way, I probably am not going to be getting a job in the Chancellor’s office any time soon.
Listen, I’m exaggerating slightly. I’m pretty decent at working out a percentage discount in New Look and whether I should buy a top or not. I just about understand how a tracker mortgage works (although I have had to have it explained to me about ten times).
But that’s OK, because do you know what? It takes all sorts to make a world and there are plenty of people out there who do understand money really well.
I trust them to let me know what’s what. Just tell me what bills I need to pay and I’ll sign on the dotted line.
This year I tuned into Rachel Reeves’ budget speech and I really did listen hard and try to follow everything she said.
Whatever your politics, I think you have to hand it to her – she delivered that budget with considerable, not to say steely, aplomb. A colleague and I decided you wouldn’t want to go into her office with any kind of bad news.
But despite all the ins and outs on National Insurance rises, what’s going on with fuel duty, not to mention the state of inflation, my brain felt considerably foggier at the end of the speech than it did at the start.
I just couldn’t easily figure out how it affected me.
Expert voices
But as I said, it takes all sorts to make a world, and the fact that I couldn’t see my way to working out how the budget affected my life doesn’t matter – because I know plenty of people who can.
And it’s why I’m so happy to be working in PR, because one of our main roles is to bring to public attention different voices who are great at breaking down something big and complex like the budget and explaining how changes decided in Whitehall will filter down and affect ordinary working people.
One of the key requirements when working in a PR agency is to be attuned to the news at all times. We react to what’s happening and source opportunities for clients to provide valuable explainers and opinions so that something like the budget jumps out of the red box and into our minds.
The brilliant Bev Wakefield, owner of Vibrant Accountancy in Derby, was ideally placed to provide commentary on BBC Radio Derby early on Wednesday 30 – providing her trademark, easy-to-understand breakdown of what might be included in one of the most hotly anticipated budgets of recent times.
Malcolm Prentice from MTMS has been on hand to explain what it means for the rail industry, providing his expertise on sites like The Business Desk. Rob and Kym Barlow, of Derbyshire recycled plastic furniture company TDP, were explaining on BBC East Midlands Today how the budget and the rise in National Insurance could affect their business.
It’s all about breaking down the budget behemoth and explaining to members of the public, piece by digestible piece, what it means for all of us. Will business owners be affected? Probably – it depends on how big they are and how many people they employ. An expert like Bev will tell you who wins and who doesn’t, and what it all means for your pocket.
How will the budget affect house owners? People trying to get on the housing ladder? Smokers? Pensioners? Those who travel a lot on buses? Minimum wage earners?
This is where journalism comes in. The old-fashioned sort that perhaps, in this world so full of opinion, we are in danger of losing sight of. The sort which, free from political opinion and bias, just provides sensible explanation of the facts and demystifies the world of numbers so that we can all understand what we want to know: as from April 2025, are we personally better or worse off?
And it’s where I’m very proud to be working in PR, providing a valuable bridge service, getting the real experts in front of the public so they can explain how it’s all relevant to them.
And, while we’re on the subject of the media, let’s take a moment to appreciate the talents of people working in news organisations like the BBC who, as the budget was being revealed, were providing real-time explanations in short, pithy sentences, explaining what was going on and why it mattered.
Because the budget does matter. What’s in that red box affects each and every one of us.
But it takes great communication to understand how and why.
This blog was written by Lucy Stephens at Penguin PR. Would you like us to write a blog for your business? Get in touch.
