The VAT rate cut

I have just read the British Chambers of Commerce's latest monthly business survey, which took in 430 firms of varying sizes across the country. They report that

"only 11.4 per cent reported that the VAT cut had benefited their businesses; 76.6 per cent said that it had had no impact; and 12.1 per cent put it down as a burden."

Another storming economic policy success for Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, the most incompetent PM and Chancellor since Callaghan and Healey. In fact that is a little unfair on James Callaghan and Denis Healey as neither of them claimed to be economic geniuses who had "abolished boom and bust".