The budget: thumbs up or thumbs down?

[policywonk]

Interested in seeing what the MN consensus is (if we can reach such a thing)

For me: thumbs up, on balance, despite not enough Hot Low-Carbon Action

This is what the TUC blog makes of the housing measures.

Must admit I know nowt about housing.

That's just my experience of the new builds in my area. I've harassed my council about it and no one will give me a straight answer so I tend to be fairly bitter about the whole London/social housing thing (don't know about other authorities) There seem to be lots of wonderful new builds, all solar panels, and new energy saving whatnots - just not aimed at families (where it would seem to make sense)

I could be wrong though, but I've got my hopes up too many times not to be fairly cynical about 'housing measures'

Well, yes, ID cards, exactly. They can do all their crowd-pleasing 'tax the rich' cobblers, but they're still going to have us all fingerprinted just for breathing.

I am shrugging my shoulders about this budget. It won't suddenly make me vote Tory, but it sure as chips doesn't make me think 'My, that Labour government knows what it's doing and what it stands for.'

Lenin - to implement the bastard things, presumably.

I do see your point serenity. Sounds very frustrating.

KayHarker lives in a Lab/Tory marginal, ladies and gentlemen. She's one of about 257 people in the country whose vote will actually count at the next General Election. Listen carefully to what she says...

It'll count if I vote Labour or Tory. It won't count if I vote Lib-dem, though.

£4 million cut in Arts Council funding

KH - agree. They are trying to please the crowd by 'taxing the rich' which is fine by me but will raise p* all - just another smoke screen, and despite their best efforts, people are mostly just not stupid enough to fall for it.

Maybe I should stand and vote for me instead.

I propose cancelling the ID card scheme and putting an enormous amount of funding into the public transport infrastructure instead. An abundance of cheap, accessible public transport will make everyone's lives better, says I.

Policy believe me you don't want it.. that said I am about to start a piece with Pesto so I will be fully bugeted up in a couple of hours.

Thumbs down.

A massive missed opportunity for a Labour Govt to do something for people on low pay and benefits to lift them out of the tax trap in a harsh economic climate.

Green measures were all over the place, wasteful and contradictory.

Focused on playing to the Labour 'politics of envy' gallery on the 50% tax rate over £150k that will not really raise any significant new revenue.

Public finances in a horrendous mess - with complete fantasy numbers on recovery in the economy. This mess is not solvable in this or any budget for the next decade or more.

...I stick to my 'dull' stance!

Joe Public will be uninterested in what many will consider high fallutin' guff about wind farms. They are interested in what affects them directly.

..I don't think like this, and yet don't for a moment believe that the commitments made will make any real difference.

...I suspect that billions will disappear in to a green hole, depriving other areas of the budget whilst not actually making much in the way of environmental improvement. To actually do something would have involved the drama that I feel is notably missing.

...and I'll believe the 'new housing' when I see it.

I'm not a natural cynic, and am by inclination vaguely sympathetic to New Labour. Yet the government is tired, and has missed an opportunity to do something of real note in what will be its final year...

LOL - HF tell Pesto that the MN blogger says 'hello'

Will do... I imagine he'll be dashing off pretty quick leaving me to fill in the gaps, he's off to collect yet another award tonight.

I hope people aren't stupid enough to fall for their expense reforms either. Greedy fucking bastards - put them in bloody Youth Hostel typee accomodation whilst they are down here so they don't need second homes - and feck me why should they get £150 a day for coming in to London to do their job that they get paid handsomely for anyway?

Lenin - Ernst & Young have worked out that the cash ISA increase is worth £9 per annum to a higher rate tax payer. I'm glad you are excited by it.

PW - What is the point of raising taxes in 2011 when they won't even be in government? Don't you see it was all about appeasing the traditional Labour vote by appearing to tax the rich? I think it was a dull budget.

The City hated it and sterling is tanking against the US $.

Here here MmeCF... I think they should do as the Swedish have done, they have 250 apartments in Stockholm for members of parliament who live outside the city. They can use these rent free or get £550 a month for apartments they find independently. Parliament only pays for repairs or improvments to the flats it owns.

Well £150 is less than I used to get from a charity when in london (cost of train at £100 plus a room overnight plus a meal) and whilst I don't think there should be any personal profit I do think the basic expenses should be covered as in pretty much any job that involves working away from home

Also they are up to their old tricks with their double accounting.

Agree Swedes - they are trying to pretend they are listening to the voters when they know they will not be in power after the next election anyway!

If someone earns £150,000 pa the government are going to get 62% of that in tax (if you include the employer NI conribution element).

Thumbs down simply on the basis of the dishonest forecasts. Darling has already shown how much we can trust his predictions - till a few months ago we weren't going to have a recession at all . Though of course by dishing out such an optimistic prediction he gets out of all sorts of nasty decisions on taxes etc in the year before an election.

I'm no fan of Cameron either, and can't see that the Tories would have dealt with it all much differently.

Personally we'll benefit slightly this year. It's just the rest of our lives (and our children's) that we'll be paying

article from the FT

I really don't understand why they don't scrap this idiotic ID scheme now. Nobody wants it and we clearly can't afford it.

Get rid of id cards, the NHS IT scheme (which I have heard through friends in IT will never actually work) and we have saved, what, £30 billion.