To ask what should have been in the budget?

[dollopofsauce]

All I've seen do far, from reading threads on here and watching CNN, is doom and gloom.

So what should Labour have done to swerve the hate? What would have been an acceptable way of raising money to help fund health, social care and education?

Genuine answers, please.

If it is true that they really didn't know about the 22 billion black hole before the election the should just admit that things have changed, they can't stick by what they said in their manifesto, and they should have just raised income tax to fund the NHS, Education etc. They would likely never live it down but it would have been the simplest thing to do.

Tax relief on school fees to boost the private sector and release pressure on oversubscribed state schools.

Get different sources. CNN? Really?

It's a decent budget under the circumstances.

A proper wealth tax and lifting the 2 child cap.

I'd go along with that @username7891 . Overall though it's useful - getting the economy moving by tapping at least some of the stagnant unearned wealth pools and keeping wages moving up.

Are you taking the p?

I'm on holiday!
So many people on here saying the opposite. I'm not a small business owner. Or a farmer.
I think that we need to raise a hell of a lot of money to ensure that we can properly fund health education and social care and ensure we can look after the more vulnerable members of society.
I'm curious how people think that this should be done?

A commentator on R4 said it would have been much simpler and fairer to simply put a 2-3p increase on all income tax bands, along with raising the current thresholds a little to protect the lowest earners. That would spread the load and be much more honest. All this "we're not going after workers" but then hammering small businesses that employ so many? It's like they think everyone is stupid.

The same commentator also said the "black hole" is estimated at 9bn not 22 by the OBR.

No

An increase in all income tax
Anything at all to help social care
Exemptions for farmers

I wonder what the response would have been if they'd done this.
I think they would have been crucified.

Removal of reliance on state to back defined benefit schemes

How does tax relief on school fees boost the private sector?
I understand that pupil numbers are declining so we need more kids in state school, not less.

Labour as ever are untrustworthy. They lied to get elected, and they believe that the electorate are too stupid to realise that that 40 billion tax has to come from somewhere. Of course a small rise in income tax would have been fairer and more transparent, but I'm afraid that's too much to hope for from this lot. Growth is not predicted to rise.

9 years ago Rachel Reeves had her parliamentary credit card taken away because of £4000 of unauthorised spending on it. I wouldn't trust her with any money.

Stop paying so many benefits to the league of people that haven't worked for years and years, who are able to work.

Have a think

How about allowing small businesses to thrive and farmers to survive? Not paying train drivers £70k? Gutting your working and middle classes is no way to run an economy. It's a way to destroy it. Small businesses and farms will now fold. Unemployment will go up. All our saving and planning has been for NOTHING. I will have nothing to pass on to my children. Reeves says they need to invest. Where are they going to get the funds? Pensions!!!! Those of us who have worked and saved for decades have been totally screwed by these inept champagne socialist arseholes. And guess what? You think if you have a public sector job you're going to be ok? You're not. Your time will come and we can all be impoverished together. That's what socialism gets you: equal opportunity starvation. It's gonna be a long, costly 5 years.

I absolutely support the idea of raising taxes. If we want decent public services, they we obviously have to pay for them and I am more than happy to contribute.

However, I would have preferred to see an increase in income tax for everyone rather than the huge NI increase for employers. I don't want to have to make good staff redundant but will probably have no choice now.

Even the NI increase could have been done differently. A flat percentage increase in employer NI would have been easier to manage than the change in threshold, which disproportionately impacts organisations that employ a lot of part time staff etc.

We're in a total mess. Regardless of if we blame Tories or COVID or Ukraine or an aging population or too few younger workers or what, no-one can deny that. I'd have far more respect for a government that said that and owned it. It's the problem with democracy..if you have to worry about being popular, you can rarely do what's right and needed.

Not to mention sick leave / mat leave etc entitlement in employment from day one! It’s becoming extremely risky and expensive for businesses to employ people. I think this will be shocking for women in the job market in particular. We’ll probably see an increase in zero hours contracts as employers look to de-risk their plans.
It’s an extremely hostile environment for small businesses in particular. Talk about killing innovation stone dead!
If I were starting again I’d seriously be looking at building my startup in Lisbon or similar.

I have been listening to james o Brian on lbc and he bas just fact checked and stated that 85 percent of farms won't be hit as what they think they will be so maybe listen to last hour again on lbc as he did a good job

Increase on tax on things that put a burden on the NHS such as -

Fast food
Alcohol
Cigarettes

Increase on income tax for everyone rather than NICS, didn't need to be much but it would take the burden off small employers.

I would have done something to ensure the price of public transport didn't rise, this would have both environmental and health benefits.

Exempted the farming families from IHT on their business passing down.

Oh bloody hell what a laugh under the tories the tich glt richer and the poor got poorer. Funny when you lot spout the shite about champagne socialists, because you would be saying, otherwise when a poor person says something. Oh, that's politics of envy, because basically nobody can have a fairer society. That's what you're saying you're ultimately saying that greedy a* that don't pay their staff properly. They are squeezing societaire and making it so many have to use universal credit while working.Getting away with that.I'm not wanting to pay a bit extra because that's what we're saying now, aren't we

They have done the price of rolling tobacco has gone up 10 percent and vapes and cigarettes yes they have frozen beer duty