It was the 18th birthday of the Child Trust Fund this week, which means the first babies to benefit can now blow the cash on socially-distanced fast living and/or invest in their futures. The problem with Gordon Brown’s Big Idea was always to be that those who most needed it would only ever have the £250 given to them from on high. Those who needed it least would have generous grandparents happy to add the then-permitted £100 per month to the pot. And, of course, within a five years, George Osborne’s austerity regime ditched it, and it went the way of most other governments’ Big Ideas.
“FCA proposes basic savings rate for cash accounts”
It’s not a big step from the imposition of a minimum interest rate to the recently-much-discussed idea of providing a the same, State-paid tax-free salary for everyone; from Elton John and David Beckham to their chambermaids’ unemployed younger brothers (see Utopia...