Chancellor’s spring statement

[Cheesecakeandwineinasuitcase]

AIBU to think that today we are about to be hugely disappointed by what Rishi says in his spring statement and just to realise just how out of touch he is with the grim reality that normal people (I.e. not millionaire politicians) in the Uk face?

My prediction is that he won’t back down on the 1.25% increase in NI contributions that he is making people pay from April. There will be a paltry reduction in fuel duty (maybe a few pence if we are lucky - but that will easily be cancelled out within a few days as prices increase to compensate). Maybe he will reduce the duty on champagne this time or some other gimmicky sweetener (wasn’t it Prosecco last time?). He might raise the threshold from which people have to start paying tax but for most working families that won’t make a jot of difference.

So it feels like we are sitting ducks and that as time goes by more and more people end up really struggling.

I try to entertain @Blossomtoes while still using the bow and arrow of truth to skewer the unfair critics of the government and the Chancellor. Sometimes I have the bow pointed towards the target but I'm self-aware enough to realist sometimes I've had it the wrong way round and shot the arrow towards me. Still, Robin Hood-like most of the time. Actually, now I've mentioned Robin Hood, I can't help but think of the Chancellor, heroically stealing from the rich and giving to the poor with the huge, game changing 5p cut in fuel duty. And something about disabled toilets.

I would have loved to have sat in the briefing meeting for the R4 Today interview this morning (and presumably the other media interviews he might have given which I missed) to have heard the discussion and have my assumptions confirmed about the talent the government brings to the table. Government at it's finest I expect.

'OK so a few people might struggle a little financially, even taking into account the generosity of the proposals so may have to tighten their belts. Perhaps let's say 'no one can be certain about the exact energy price over the next 6 months so that's why we must do nothing about energy prices and windfall taxes or anything else. Let's hope no one thinks about all the other policies we've made where we didn't have the ability to predict the future. No that's not a hostage to fortune.

If asked about the tax cut planned for two year's time and coincidentally just before the election, let's say it's because circumstances in 24 months are easier to predict than now.

When challenged about already desperate people on benefits facing increases in energy costs in April and again in September, let's say something about everyone having the mighty protection of the cap after it rises in April then remind everyone we can't be expected to know every single person's exact circumstances so that's why we're doing nothing. If we say it the right way, everyone with think that sounds reasonable. Or at least struggle to understand the sophistry in time before the next question. And again let's hope no one thinks about all the other policies we've made where we didn't have the ability to know every single person's circumstances in detail. No that's probably not a hostage to fortune.

And don't forget to say something about accessible toilets if some mean journalist is sceptical about the answers because disabled people are important. We can try and make the interviewer sound like they hate disabled people and they're at the forefront of our thoughts.'

I can imagine Malcolm Tucker being temporarily speechless if he was sat in the meeting. He'd probably be impressed or something.

Food banks were one of many things David Cameron referred to as part of ‘the big society’* where he decided ‘society’ should be filling in the gaps that were there, with helping people, when he was elected in, and, then comments about

‘we’re all in it together’
‘the genuine will not suffer’
‘I know what disability is like’

Etc etc.

He’s been showing off recently about volunteering for a food bank on his social media (not that I follow the hypocrite but it’s been reposted by others on my timeline), and how, vital they are...

So no they aren’t provided by the government directly but they were referenced heavily in his big society* plans.

*i think it was called that, but it might have been something similar, am doubting myself now.

I honestly can’t believe someone thinks life was worse because there were no foodbanks. Despite having been provided with the stats on child poverty. You’re Jacob Rees Mogg and I claim my £5.

@Blossomtoes i can't believe people like you think no one suffered because food banks didn't exist thats the bit your missing
Do you think people never went hungry before

[quote worriedatthistime]@Blossomtoes i can't believe people like you think no one suffered because food banks didn't exist thats the bit your missing
Do you think people never went hungry before [/quote]
Between 1998 and 2003 reducing child poverty was made a priority - with a comprehensive strategy and investment in children - and the number of children in poverty fell by 600,000

@Blossomtoes but in real life did it
Who is the biggest campaigner for free school dinners and why , and look up who was in power then
So it did exsist even then i also know as I lived it , did you

@Blossomtoes fell from what though and how is it measured ? You act like it was all perfect and nobody struggled
Yes its shit now for many but it has also been shit for many over many many goverments of all colours

@worriedatthistime if you are so disillusioned maybe don't vote rather than lending the tories an utterly undeserved one.

@Mistygreyeyes I don't and good you made an assumption i did as oer usual in here and people with your views
The clue was probably in when I said they were all as bad as one another , hence i don't vote
Your the one who seems to think life was perfect before for all
Its always tough for those on the bottom and those i the middle trying to improve themselves
None of them have great policies at present

@saltnvinegarlover

What I also don't understand is who the fuck votes for these arses.

I've done something I really rarely do- read the OP, then three or so replies, but hopped on at 250-odd responses, having not read them.

Soz.

But, I thinks it's really important for us to recognise that we voted for this. We're up for casino capitalism. We don't care about employee rights. We actually don't. We voted for this.

To the victor, the spoils.

I'm not a monster, I feel deep sympathy for those who voted Remain, and voted for parties other than Tory (less sympathy for those that didn't bother, on either count), who are going to suffer alongside the Red Wall Brexit Tory voters. Do you now understand what you voted in? 🤔

But we are where we are. Beds have been made, to be laid upon.

And, personally, I think everyone should pay some form of tax.

It seals some sort of social contract. Everyone therefore has a dog in the race.

Without it, you have a strata of society who are only recipients, like charity cases. I don't think that's a healthy place to be.

@Fordian even those on benefits ?

I'm not a monster, I feel deep sympathy for those who voted Remain, and voted for parties other than Tory (less sympathy for those that didn't bother, on either count), who are going to suffer alongside the Red Wall Brexit Tory voters. Do you now understand what you voted in? 🤔

At what point in time are you going to stop trying to insinuate people are uneducated (something you wasn't really worried about when they always voted for labour) and realise that at the time the opposition lost, not only to Boris but more embarssingly to May, and offer no kind of introspection?

It's easy to blame the 'other' and 'right wing media' etc, despite in the run up to both elections MN was flooded with Canary posts.

As for trying to tie remain into this argument, I voted remain because I accept the neoliberal principals of the union of shifting cheap labour, the anti EU stance has always been a left wing position historically, Benn was famous for it and it's a gaslight to pretend that Corbyn wasn't a life long anti EU protagonist.

It's quite funny how you throw boom and bust rhetoric into this whilst implying that the EU even protected against that, to use a simple UK example, it was Labour (probably not the right kind of labour for you) who was in charge when the last financial crash happened, the EU and Labour bailed out the capitilists.

It's trying to make voting for a party a simple binary 'moral choice' why some people cannot understand how someone can have a different view point without trying to reduce it to simplistic terms, no introspection, no 'critical thinking (TM)', it's easier to blame it on some bogey man of right wing media and not accepting the intelligence of the old red wall because they have voted the 'wrong way', it usually comes from people who want to unironically introduce Jim Crows law and make people show they can vote via a questionaire.

@Justanotherlurker its typical on here if people don't vote the way they do there stupid or misinformed
Personally how I see it they all scree you over one way or the other just better of two evils and most wether they admit it or not vote for a party that will help their circumstances in some way or other
Its going to be tough for all of us but its also not the first time for many of us and successive goverments have got is on this position

Tough is very subjective.

I vote as I always do of course I look at things that matter to me but I also look at wider implications as well.

@Blossomtoes

This bad as each other nonsense makes me so angry. The only period of my adult life when we had properly funded public services was 1997 to 2010. The NHS was well funded, waiting times were short and it was easy to get a GP appointment.

The difference in child poverty since 2010 is massive. Look here to see how much worse it is now.

cpag.org.uk/recent-history-uk-child-poverty

We didn’t have foodbanks under a Labour government because there was very little need for them @worriedatthistime.

We’re also being taxed at the highest level for over 30 years. The lowest tax band was 10% in 2009. The first thing Cameron’s government did was abolish it, so the tax bill of the poorest doubled.

All the same, my arse.

@Blossomtoes you do realise that the decision to abolish the 10p tax rate was taken by Brown in his final budget as Chancellor in 2008?

Whereas successive Coalition and Conservative governments have raised the personal allowance above inflation such that those who would once have paid the 10p rate now pay nothing at all.

@Blossomtoes we did need foodbanks i needed them
Also like i said a very famous footballer campaigned for free school meals in holidays as his mum struggled to put food on the table whilst working , under a labour government
You talk absolute rubbish, just because your now more aware that people struggle you can just pretend it didn't happen before as you were not affected
Maybe take your head out the sand

@Blossomtoes also red up there were food banks under labour but bot so accessible
Just have a google

I'm pleased that people are looking at things in the round rather than just focusing on this government. The advantage of a heated debate is that it will keep people warm though they might want to park some issues to use when Winter is Coming and the energy cap is increased again and keeping warm is a tad harder. I'm pleased the government is getting the recognition it deserves for the extent of its efforts. And it's good the PP's discussion hasn't been sidelined with trivia about relative and absolute poverty and the effects of the post-2010 income spread reduction that might have appeared to remove some children not by silly things like increasing their family income but by the terrible misfortune of reducing the income of millionaires who can't afford the cuts in their lifestyle and didn't have the life experience with losing a holiday or a third car.

[quote worriedatthistime]@Blossomtoes we did need foodbanks i needed them
Also like i said a very famous footballer campaigned for free school meals in holidays as his mum struggled to put food on the table whilst working , under a labour government
You talk absolute rubbish, just because your now more aware that people struggle you can just pretend it didn't happen before as you were not affected
Maybe take your head out the sand
[/quote]
Why the insults?

MR was born in 1997 !
Sure his family struggled under Labour too, no govt can rid us of poverty but some at least try!
Brown got rid of 10% rate but he also introduced it! also got us tax credits, the mw... all opposed by the Tories.

Under Sunak, someone on MW (17k) will be over £500 a year worse off, someone on average wage (27k) will be approx £200 worse off.

Is that fair? is it fair he cuts fuel duty by such a paltry amount, ignoring the fact that he has made billions from the price rises?

Inflation is 8% UC goes up by 3% resolution foundation believes and extra 1.3m children will go into absolutely poverty.

He also is making billions from student loan repayments by freezing the threshold, this will effect very poorly paid healthcare workers, we already have 110k NHS vacancies.

its madness... oh and no sign of a single new Hospital, let alone the 40 promised.......

@Alexandra2001 what insults and when im being called a liar and it all being it never existed at all i have a right to say yes it did

@Alexandra2001 tax credits left millions owing thousands as well
It was not all it cracked up to be
Also just because you intoduce a threshold doesn't mean its ok to take it away
All i am saying is we can't pretend one party will make all good and everyone had a better life before and no one struggled
Pp even said food banks did not exist at all as no one needed them, was is wrong with pointing out that isn't correct

reducing the income of millionaires who can't afford the cuts in their lifestyle and didn't have the life experience with losing a holiday or a third car

I see no-one is thinking of the oligarchs. Won't someone please think of the oligarchs.

twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1507250703483424768?s=20&t=KRbAGVZfjQjYHXeGWOl44w

I’d genuinely forgotten that @DdraigGoch, thank you for correcting me. I’d also forgotten about the compensating tax credits so thank you for reminding me about that @Alexandra2001.

There were 56 food banks in 2010 @worriedatthistime. Guess how many there are now? Over 2,000 and they can’t keep up with demand. I’ve given you a source for historic child poverty statistics that you’ve conveniently ignored because you prefer anecdote to fact.

@Blossomtoes you pick your stats as you like but you said they never existed and were not needed which simply is not true