There was definately some bollocks about a change from a £30bn deficit to £10 bn surplus in 2019 /20. I am and also sceptical about tax avoidance clawbacks - these never seem to materialise.
The problems with budgets these days is that most of it is forward dated and most of what will whack us between the eyes in April was announced 12 months ago.
The sugar tax is good move imo
So is the restriction of interest payments that can be set against corporation tax - that was one scheme used by the big corps to deflate profits artificially
Let’s focus on what this means: austerity does not work. Leave aside the Labour charge that it is vindictive against the poor — it is counterproductive in its own terms.
If you impose a “rule” on yourself, which is broken within 12 months because of a serious deterioration in the global economy, and then have to borrow tens of billions more than you expected while— at the same time — planning billions in extra cuts: maybe the rule is wrong?
Osborne confirmed the Bank of England’s inflation target is 2%, and made no overt signal that he wants the bank to increase its monetary stimulus; in fiscal terms he announced the opposite of a stimulus — a small addition to austerity.
Some inside Labour had agonised over whether to announce its own rule last Friday, worried about whether it would hand Osborne ammunition to attack them.
As it turns out Mr Osborne is out of ammunition, full stop.
Osborne’s glum face during Jeremy Corbyn’s speech — an uncharacteristically angry barnstormer — was matched by the glum faces of Blairites as they realised their own party was actually going to inflict moral and political damage on the government.
It’s alright though, if you are under 40 and save £4k p/a, you get given £1k.
Now, this sounds all well and good. But the only people I know that can save £4k a year are the folk that don’t need these sorts of handouts.
Wonder how this was funded? Pretty sure the gov’t just took £1.5k p/a away from disabled folk, y’know, to incentivise them into work.
Absolute shower of scumbag cunts. They are wrecking the economy, and damaging society. Austerity is a con, they are stealing from the poor to give to the wealthy.
Research indicates that 85% of the budget benefits are going to the wealthiest. Good article in the Indy which makes some of the points that KRG made earlier in the thread.
I am ok with this Policy bc it is Gd For Bears! It is maybe a bit Clever bc the spare £4k I would otherwise take as Pension contribution, which I would not pay tax on, but now I will now take it as wages to put in the Bank thing, so it will be tax right now which I spose will pay for the £1k the government bro is Pony Up.
In full disclosures, I did not think of the Clever bit above myself, bro on GMTV this morning said it + i thought, oh yeah.
A budget aimed at making life easier for the richest in society but tougher for the poor and those with disabilities, while glossing over policy failures, is no shock.
It just surprises me that many people will happily sleepwalk along with policies that clearly benefit those making them.
Some ministers have links with business that border on criminal - and in some cases they go clearly beyond that line.
What’s being proposed with some NHS contracts can only be defined as corruption.
The academies thing alone is huge. The amount of money allocated to “academise” falls way short of the money it’s actually going to cost. We’ll end up selling schools and/or the land underneath them to private industries. Parents have no real recourse beyond the academy beyond that. It’s just like the NHS, localism and everything else. Break it into smaller pieces and sell it off, and because there will be no overarching oversight to prevent any of it, few will be any the wiser.
Meh. I preferred it when you were banging on about “fixing the roof while the sun is shining”. Mind you, even Osborne won’t try that one now, so sir would be a brave soul.
The Conservatives have dropped the ball in full public view. This is the party of economic competence, remember? We have spent six years cutting public services and increasing certain levies, and for what? To borrow more money than ever? To not get anywhere near to clearing the deficit?
Osborne used to be able to count on the veneer of independent support too. The ORB would sorta back him up, and if you squinted your eyes and hoped for the very very best, yes, it might just work. Not now. The IFS are saying that this budget is dodgy, and this is the first budget since “omnishambles” which the majority of the country believe is unfair.
The Chancellor is now under threat of revolt from his own MPs over the cuts to Personal Independence Payments and according to one new poll yesterday, Labour are a point ahead of the Conservatives.
George Osborne made hundreds of millions of pounds in “secret cuts” to the NHS in his Budget, according to the small print of his Budget document. Research compiled by the Liberal Democrats suggests £650 million was taken out of the health service by changes to public sector pensions that leave employers fielding extra costs.
Disgusting what they are doing to the NHS, right under peoples noses. This (attitude, not this specifically) is a big part of why doctors are so pissed and venting their frustrations. They see what is happening first hand.
The “it’s all about wages” lines are utter bollocks. Always have been.
The govt lowered its assumed discount rate for future pension liabilities.
_ 2.13 Public service pensions SCAPE discount rate – The government has reviewed the discount rate used to set employer contributions to the unfunded public service pension schemes. The discount rate is being set at 2.8% and employers will pay higher contributions to the schemes from 2019-20 as a result._
The “employers” here are the divisions of govt, public sector, that employ doctors, nurses, soldiers etc. In practice, the money is now going to have to come from individual departments budgets - which means there is less money for hiring new nurses or doctors, equipment etc. So yeah, that’s a pretty sizable, back door cut.
