Thread 21. Sunak. How many more will be deserting the sinking ship?

[Roussette]

Here we go. Previous thread.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4735780-thread-21-sunak-return-of-the-numpties?page=20&reply=124466839

Understandably.

twitter.com/Peston/status/1636017586906202113

For top rate tax payers who have already stopped saving for a pension because they’ve reached their lifetime limit, the abolition of the limit looks to me like an annual £27,000 a year tax saving - because most will restart saving. Quite a bung for the rich #Budget2023

If it'll stop senior NHS doctors not wanting to work/work more because of the tax bill they get on the pension, I'm fine with it. Thanks in no small part to the stupidity of the Tories, we now find ourselves short of workers. If we want people to work, it has to be worth their while, and that includes people who don't actually need the money. This is only them correcting a foolish decision that Osborne made.

I think this will apply to less than 10,000 workers (large numbers will be consultants/GPs) Good way to head off any proposed Consultant strike.

According to Dan Bloom

The big debate … scrapping the lifetime allowance on pensions will deprive the Treasury of £835million a year by 2027-28 - for a reform expected to ensure around 15,000 more people are staying in work
twitter.com/danbloom1/status/1636008109536624640?t=xpMdNu3Kw8ZCoZ5RLVNByg&s=19

Verdict from the Early Years Alliance

twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1636041774102724615?t=qL8IHEin-N5J4yhmNmmiNQ&s=19

This issue is as much about the jobs those people will be doing as it is the numbers, so he's telling barely half a story there.

Martin Lewis

Universal credit 2m jobseekers will have more rigorous sanctions - if they dont take 'appropriate' work. So its going to be tougher for people who don't work and who govt thinks can

But only if they go back to work.

I am not so sure that they will with the current state of the NHS

From inews

Hunt put the best possible face on a terrible situation today. But his smile is nervous and tentative. When it breaks, you can see his private recognition of the disaster we face. Some of that is, as Hunt likes to insist, a result of external factors. But much of it is to do with the decisions his party has taken and the ones it has not.

Well there is that, but Hunt wasn't exactly going to say as much in the budget.

"But only if they go back to work.

I am not so sure that they will with the current state of the NHS"

Maybe they assume we will be losing 1000s of Junior Doctors overseas.
Consultants are absolutely vital but Juniors (and non Consultant specialists) are a big part of what keeps the NHS running. Keeping them in the workforce is key.

C4 doing a really interesting piece just now on the infiltration of anti migrant protests by Patriotic Alternative.

Locals are basically happily admitting that they were 'helped out' by PA who are clearly in turn exploiting them.

The budget and schools. Predictable:

schoolsweek.co.uk/budget-2023-hunt-wants-all-primaries-to-provide-wraparound-childcare/

Hey no mention if increasing budgets to meet their primary aim - education

That schools week article is deeply depressing. I hope that's covered in the media (fat chance).

Wish I'd seen this, will try +1.

It rather gave the lie to a lot of the nonsense written on the 'right wing' thread about ' concerned locals'. I mean I know we knew that anyway.

The doctors dh and I know that have retired from the profession all retired due to I'll health. Some of those are working in supermarkets due to the ongoing stresses of the job. I don't know any who retired early because their pensions were full.

This budget isn't seeing us as people, just numbers on a spreadsheet that need to be making a profit. It's not great.

The Ch4 News report was a really interesting contrast to areas I know where asylum seekers are housed, usually in hotels. One is in the wider area where I live and one is somewhere I know well and I’m in FB groups for both of them. There’s low level grumbling, some “house our homeless people first” stuff that is always countered by “ok, here are the local resources for homeless people, see you there to volunteer!”, but nothing on the scale of Knowsley or Cannock. Far Right groups can light a tiny spark in a community that can quickly turn into a huge blaze.
It’s not even as simple as the authorities not listening to people and their legitimate concerns. Some communities are more resistant to the approaches of the Far Right and it’s fascinating to try to unpick why. It’s not to do with any specific thing, like wealth or class.

Off topic but relevant to the Budget I think. Victoria Derbyshire interview with John Glen (Treasury) finally mentioning the elephant in the room.

🎙Do you think they voted to be poorer, honestly?

“People were given a choice and made a decision”

John Glen, Treasury Chief Secretary, reacts to whether Brexit is why Britain is the only G7 country not to recover to its pre-Covid size

#Newsnight | bbc.in/2Ps915G

twitter.com/bbcnewsnight/status/1636138434531147783?s=46&t=Uw4lJNwxFZFnX0Xs3doHYg

From the German broadcaster ZDF

Strikes and demonstrations in GB: Teachers, junior doctors und Tube workers walk out and fight for higher wages.

twitter.com/ZDFlondon/status/1636030945504509956?t=n4ugKFKpW8juT3RYTSqMqQ&s=19

So was that drone footage used anywhere on UK tv last night? Pretty obviously it wasn't on BBC (no surprises there) but I wondered if Sky or ITV might have used it.

I don't know, I have only seen comments regarding the BBC.

Wow - that demo is huge.
Tb 'fair' the Beeb is thoroughly impartial in its coverage of strikes consistently underestimating the number of participants.

DH , not a money expert admittedly, reckons consultants could now be incentivised to stop working earlier as they could put a bigger proportion of their salaries into the pension pot without penalty.