Well done George Osborne - stonking budget

[claig]

Tax free Allowance rising to £11000
40% tax threshold rising to £43000
Corporation Tax falling to 19% and then 18%
National Living Wage will reach £9 by 2020, will start at £7.20

If they carry on like this, Labour are finished and poor old UKIP and Farage won't stand a chance of getting a look in. But credit where credit is due - well done Osborne!

'If you don't (or won't) read my posts then there is very little point talking to you.'

Selfina and ssd, don't bother trying to reason with Isitmebut, it's a lost cause. It's like talking to a brick wall, only thicker.

What you say goes in one ear and out the other without the impediment of anything in between with Isitmebut.

It's probably Gordon Brown's fault...

She has more than me so I want her to have less

This exactly this. It is not a race to the bottom.

Also for all those isitme included saying we don't want our children and grandchildren paying off the debt in future. Indeed. Why wait??
lets just plunge them into poverty right now.

The reality of taking away TC from working families is taking money away from children.

The disadvantage that some of those children face is likely to have knock on effects for their future. This in turn aftects the economy.

More illness, less attainment, malnutrition, more kids in care etc. Means more cost for the state.

One of the good things about WTC and childcare TC is it keeps the parents of young children in work.

I receive TC. I work. I PAY TAX.

Seffina I wouldn't be surprised, he was responsible for the global reccesion, the greek crisis and that chap what left 1D.

Alyosha … first of all, I don’t know if you lived through those ‘good old days’ of the 1970’s as I did, when rampant inflation and trade unions insisting their members had above inflation rises were successful, right up until UK factories shut their doors forever and manufacturing as a share of our economy (when sod all else) fell from around 29% in 1970 to 23% in 1979 – but they should NEVER be used as a viable UK economic/business/social model.

Next the fall of UK manufacturing under Labour/Brown even by 2005, when one million jobs went as they were concentrating on their unsustainable fat State – look at the reasons cited, most of which were imposed under Labour or could have been helped/offset in Labour Budgets, rather than keep putting their costs of doing business, up.

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/million-factory-jobs-lost-under-labour-6150418.html
”Gordon Brown's reputation for economic management will suffer a blow today from official figures showing that 1 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since Labour won power in May 1997.”

”Business organisations blamed red tape, rising taxes, a strong pound and the burgeoning public sector for the wave of redundancies. They urged Mr Brown to use his Budget to slash costs facing industry and do more to boost skills.”

The following shows the continued imbalance of our economy under Labour, especially after the financial crash began in late 2007, when public sector employment appears to have been used politically to OFFSET the fall of employment in the private sector – whose new total government employee numbers and guaranteed wage levels, made a huge difference to our annual budget deficit by 2010 e.g. the £153 bil they passed to the Conservative Coalition.

So looking at the FORTH CHART on the first link below where government employment from the early 2000’s rose more than the private sector (even compensating when business job losses look as if they fell off a cliff), how can Labour brag about their last 13-years of GDP, employment, worker prosperity, average UK salaries, when under such a government overspend FIX, even inequality under them ROSE.
www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-12-22/uks-holiday-cheer-in-four-charts

www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/30/british-wage-slump-post-financial-crisis-uk
“British workers are taking home less in real terms than when Tony Blair won his second general election victory in 2001, with men and young people hit hardest by the wage squeeze that followed the financial crisis, according to new research.”

“Private sector workers have so far experienced larger earnings falls than public sector workers, largely because of the period between the onset of recession and the beginning of the current period of public sector pay restraint in 2011.”

minkGrundy .... re your

^"Also for all those isitme included saying we don't want our children and grandchildren paying off the debt in future. Indeed. Why wait??
lets just plunge them into poverty right now."^

How many WILL be "plunged into poverty right now", as what do you think would happen to the UK's 70 million citizens in several years time and their services, welfare, benefits, pensions, NHS, etc with 2,000,000,000,000 of UK National Debt?

How does ANY country get rid of £2 trillion of national debt other than through higher taxes for all, and heavier cuts to all government spending???

Why should the WHOLE population suffer in the near to medium term because one party INFLATED government spending to unsustainable levels, and the 'want it all now' generations don't want to understand that we are living beyond our means?

In 4-5 years time, just the interest on our National Debt is projected to be over £60 billion a year and that is without any interest rate shocks on the upside, from the around 300-year record low now since the Bank of England was founded.

The £60 billion interest charges plus coming out our soon to be annual spending budgets could clearly be BETTER spent, so the sooner the UK budget goes into a surplus from the current £70 billion annual budget deficit - we will have at least the option of increased public spending coming out of money we will be earning (without adding to our debts) OR paying off the National Debt.

P.S. Osborne's budgets are about rebalancing/growing the whole UK economy, much needed after what was inherited in 2010, so that we pay debt off faster and have more government spending options in the years ahead.

Oh right so not the WHOLE population should suffer just children in families who work but don't earn much or who come from a large family through no fault of their own.

So much for we are all in it together.

The argument of not wanting kids to be poor in the future holds no water when a) the current government and the coalition have both let the debt rise, not fall and b) you are making children poorer now.

They will grow up poor. Have poorer life prospects as a result. Most of them will stay poor..and the country will still be in debt.

Why should the poorest pay so the middle classes children and pensioners and the super rich don't have to. Some of the least well off working families are about to lose 10% of their income. Why not take the same extra 10% off everyone else? Then we can all be in it together...or the rich will suddenly decide, hey maybe it wasn't necessary after all.

Why should the WHOLE population suffer in the near to medium term because one party INFLATED government spending to unsustainable levels

1. this was not the cause of the global financial crisis which caused the recession

2. because they are the government elected by the people. They were the government of the WHOLE population so the WHOLE population pays. Or are you suggesting that only the lowest paid should pay because they voted for them? The WHOLE country is in debt.

Too fucking right the WHOLE country should pay.

All the talk of previous labour governments. Typical Tory tactic trying to point blame elsewhere. They are the government now. It is them that set this smoke and mirrors budget whilst claiming to suppory hard working families.

minkGrundy.... FYI the huge increase in UK government spending, including on Welfare and Benefits, happened from 2001/2 to 2007/8 so were policy decisions before the main effects of the financial crash. YES or NO?

Do you have qualified counters to the claims here, on how our spending/welfare system grew out of control up to 2008, while Labour were bragging back then of 'record employment'. YES or NO.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10574376/Graphic-Britain-outstrips-Europe-on-welfare-spending.html

"Welfare spending in Britain has increased faster than almost any other country in Europe since 2000, new figures show."

"The cost of unemployment benefits, housing support and pensions as share of the economy has increased by more than a quarter over the past thirteen years – growing at a faster rate than in most of the developed world."

The Conservatives can not apologise for Labour increasing our population by 3-million in a few years, and forgot to build new homes, increasing domestic unemployment and homelessness (with 5 million needing social homes in 2010) without seemingly to care a shit about the poor when they had £trillions to spend - but now do, after leaving a fecking £153 billion annual Labour OVERSPEND in 2010 for the Conservatives.

Sort the 'smoke and mirrors' about them FACTS.

And re "Why should the poorest pay so the middle classes children and pensioners and the super rich don't have to"

Labour SCREWED pensions/pensioners royally over 13-years, the wealthiest in the UK are paying far more tax than under Labour and what the fuck do you do about the super rich, who can move when grubby incompetent governments who can't create a sustainable government, attempt to come after them?

But the 'class war' is always a good socialist smokescreen to deflect from their incompetence, especially having built a huge welfare state, that was to crumble on the first major recession, as the taxes to PAY for it, ALWAYS crash.

See, this is what is wrong with politics. Thinking that a government policy is a bad one does not mean that the opposition is flawless, it is perfectly possible to be critical of the party in power and the main opposition.

Thinking that cuts that affect the working poor almost exclusively are wrong doesn't actually make me a labour supporter.

Isitmebut wrote;

But the 'class war' is always a good socialist smokescreen to deflect from their incompetence, especially having built a huge welfare state, that was to crumble on the first major recession

And blaming Labour’s incompetence is just the Conservative government’s smokescreen for politicking and propaganda.

As a Conservative I have no pleasure in exposing David Cameron's deficit claims. However, as long as the party continues to talk down the economy via the blame game, confidence will not be given an opportunity to return. For it is an undeniable and inescapable economic fact: without confidence and certainty there can be no real growth…..

… Labour in 1997 inherited a debt of 42% of GDP. By the start of the global banking crises 2008 the debt had fallen to 35% - a near 22% reduction page 6 ONS Surprisingly, a debt of 42% was not seen as a major problem and yet at 35% the sky was falling down?

… Cameron is playing the blame game to depress confidence and growth to justify austerity. Secondly, to use austerity as justification for a smaller state to gain lower taxes. Thirdly, to paint Labour as a party that can not be trusted with the country's finances again. Ramesh Patel

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ramesh-patel/growth-cameron-austerity_b_2007552.html

When taken as a share of GDP sums spent on working age benefits changed very little between 1961 and 2011, except for a rise throughout of most of the 1990s. Rather than government policy the biggest increase in welfare spending has been on pensioners and state pensions due to increased life expectancy. See;

fullfact.org/factchecks/welfare_spending_economy_Lib_dem_conference-28294

The state pension has increased 16% since 2010 but that has only benefits well-off pensioners rather than poor pensioners who have had other benefits cut. If George Osbourne was serious about economics, fairness and reducing welfare spending he would have reduced the state pension for rich pensioners in this budget.

I remember the 1970s. Economic stagnation in much of the Western world triggered by sharply higher prices for oil resulted in high levels of unemployment and inflation in the UK. Manufactoring has been in decline ever since.

During 1980s under the Thatcher-led Tory government inflation and the number of strikes fell. However the monetarist policies designed to curb inflation saw unemployment rise for years after the Tory 1981 budget. Some would say that wasn’t necessary or justifiable. It wasn’t until the turn of the 21st century that unemployment fell below the level that it had risen. The rise in suicide rates, in homelessness, in child poverty, in poverty in general was exceptionally high by the time Thatcher left office.

Minimum wages or national minimum wages as proposed in the recent budget create unemployment as they rise in a world where businesses are increasingly buying technology rather than paying workers. The article in The Economist someone mentioned earlier points out France has a generous minimum wage and an unemployment rate of more than 10% . George Osbourne has admitted raising a national minimum wage will cost jobs here. The inheritance tax cut is “the daftest economic policy of the decade,” - it will just encourage the better-off to buy bigger homes when there is a shortage of housing. No real investment to improve productivity or solutions for the housing shortage.

www.economist.com/news/leaders/21657393-george-osbornes-political-vision-brave-boldand-many-counts-wrong-new-conservatism

STIDW .... you are posting about smokescreens, yet chose to use debt etc to GDP, still clearly oblivious to the FACT there can be the 'wrong sort of GDP'.

I have no doubt that someone can use debt to GDP ratios to show that the economy was in a worse state in 1997 after 24 or more conseq quarters of GDP growth, than in 2010, having lost around a (record) 7% of GDP/output in 2008/9 - which is clearly absolute rollocks.

AGAIN I go back to the structure of the fat State economy under Labour, and remind people that Government Spending and Consumption are huge contributors to GDP, so if the State is spending/hiring and dishing out welfare and benefits like confetti, IT WILL INCREASE 'GROWF' - but that economic growth is NOT sustainable - especially if it needed the tax receipts of a credit/debt/speculative boom and for the government to borrow over £30 bill a year during the boom, to fund it.

P.S. Re your "George Osbourne has admitted raising a national minimum wage will cost jobs here"

You are correct that he did say that, and Alastair Darling said similar in 2009/10 when hiking National Insurance to companies and workers, while the economy was still on life support.

But I thought Osborne said that while the OBR said that 60,000 jobs could be potentially lost specifically attributed to the higher wages, they also said that up to 1 million new jobs could be created due to the accumulation of Osborne's measures since 2010, correct?

Isitmebut -

a) Over the same time period the USA also lost manufacturing - but they have much less "red tape" - the developed world has been losing manufacturing for some time to lower wage countries. Manufacturers have an interest in not saying "we're leaving so we can pay workers in foreign countries much less"

b) I object to the idea that there is a "wrong" kind of GDP. Public spending can stimulate growth in the rest of the economy, and as long as they're doing something useful (like being a doctor, or teaching music, or drama), and you can afford their wages - no problem from me.

Private industry is important but it can and is stimulated by demand from people in well paid jobs in the public sector. Osborne taking £2000 off poor families will cause a huge drop in consumption.

Labour made many missteps - there should have been tighter regulations on mortgage lending & financial services. Minimum wage should have gone up more, there should have been greater incentives to work, disability etc. etc.

But fundamentally our giant public debt was driven by bailing out the banks...not by overspending.

Alyosha …. I’d suggest that you are factually lacking on all your points, which is maybe why you (?) and others do not see the prime purposes of core Conservative economic policies and Osborne’s prime reasons for his budgets; to rebalance the UK economy and put in place the private sector blocks to help grow our way out of national debt, while cutting our expenditures to sustainable levels.

Taking tour points one by one;

a) The UK and other western economies have been losing heavy and mass production to the Far East for nearly 50-years, Japan, Taiwan and then China, so the UK had to go higher up the ‘value added’ chain i.e. Optics and aero engines, and Government has a role here, to HELP businesses to invest/hire/compete, or at the very least, DON’T MAKE THINGS HARDER.

So saying stuff like ‘America was losing as well’, seems to me typical of the 2000’s government complacency looking at the EU and elsewhere at ‘low bars’ and be content the UK was not always the lowest, but even in stuff like the education basics, we were.

You actually mentioned “red tape” (America didn’t seem to have), cited within the ‘UK lost 1 million manufacturing jobs’ in the several years link I provided - yet don’t ask WHY or WHAT can be done about it - which Conservative administrations understanding there is no god given right for private sector companies to exist/hire, always do.

Here we have a Prime Minister below who BECAME concerned, somewhat late for the million manufacturing jobs, what Labour had done via the Financial Services Authority (FSA) - that Gordon Brown formed in 1997, in addition to the infamous EU red tape – seemingly spending more time away from their primary duty of City Regulation.

(July 2005) ”What Blair really thinks about the FSA”
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2918368/What-Blair-really-thinks-about-the-FSA.html

“Tony Blair is gripped by a desire to slash red tape - or so he claimed in a speech last month. That address attracted notice principally for Tony Blair's surprising and controversial statement that the Financial Services Authority is "seen as hugely inhibiting of efficient business" - but his assertions roamed wider than that.”

“No one in any business - be it vast or tiny - needs to be told that the burden of regulation has increased since Labour came to power in 1997. The British Chambers of Commerce estimates that the cost for business of coping with red tape from Whitehall and Brussels will be £39bn this year - four times as much as in 1997.”

“Of course the bureaucrats of Brussels are only half of the problem. At the end of May the prime minister delivered an embarrassing rebuke to the City watchdog, the FSA, which was set up by the new Labour Government in 1997.”

“Blair said: "Something is seriously awry when … the Financial Services Authority that was established to provide clear guidelines and rules for the financial services sector and to protect the consumer against the fraudulent, is seen as hugely inhibiting of efficient business by perfectly respectable companies - that have never defrauded anyone."

..more

..contd

b) I reiterate my main point made SEVERAL times, government spending inspired economic growth HAS TO BE SUSTAINABLE if that is the main engine driving the UK economy and became around 53% of our output, as the State and its expenditure grew faster than the Private Sector supporting it – as per that Employment graph I provided earlier – where from 1997 to 2010 the Public Sector employment grew around 18% and the Private Sector only grew around 7%.

Furthermore as the economics link mentioned, much of Labour’s increased spending was built on the unsustainable tax receipt base of a financial/credit boom that HAD to burst eventually as unsustainable, examples below;
UK Mortgage Lending from 1997 to Sep 2007 rose from £21 bil a year to £115 bil a year.

UK Average House Prices from 1997 to Feb 2008 rose from £73,000 to £232,000

Household Debt % of Income from 1997 to Mar 2008 rose from 97% to 168%

So of course the Private Sector will benefit as a satellite for the huge amounts of money/borrowing being pumped in by the State, but sustainability aside, many of the Public Sector jobs were not Doctors or nurses, they were ‘created’ with many billions being spent on new Quangos and ‘non jobs’ .

Next Osborne’s rebalancing act as the annual budget deficit has fallen to £70 billion this year, there will be ‘winners and losers’ but realistically have to be looked at from May 2010 (when nearly all of us were facing another Labour administrations post election tax rises), now over a net 2 million have jobs and had various other start rate of tax help etc – but the FACT is, the budget had to be a net tax take, to keep reducing the 2010 State £153 billion overspend.

Leading on to WHY we had the £153 billion 2010/11 State overspend, Darling earlier predicted would be £167 bil if memory serves, that you allude to, was due to the bank bail out.

The UK was alone in part privatising banks such as RBS and Lloyds by the State picking up equity, but what was the one-off cost in 2007 or 2008, £60, £70, or £80 billion – as if this one off payment was 2-years old, WHY did we have a £153 bil ANNUAL overspend in 2010 and dropping relatively slowly each year since?

France ‘the mother’ of the bureaucratic fat State, also had a banking crisis, why was their Annual Budget Deficit in 2010 ‘only’ around Euro 60 billion?

I reiterate my points all along, the massive increase in UK government spending on its fat self and a welfare/benefits policy fest from 2001 to 2008 was unmatched anywhere else in Europe

And when from 2008 UK businesses and the people needed help with a fiscal/tax cut stimulus (other countries had) the UK couldn’t – as that would have both meant that THEY had to dismantle their whole project built on a financial bubble and piss off the Public sector Trade Unions funding their 2010 General Elections campaign.

If anyone disagrees, show us any major Private Sector help Labour offered, and 13-year inflated Public Sector cuts, from 2008-10, otherwise please accept they were like rabbits in headlights, unable to do what they needed to do, by fixing their own mess - as the UK government annual budget overspend would have rocketed towards £200 bil a year, OR from may 2010 covered by massive tax increases to all.

isitme wtf is with all the SHOUTING?

Labour a no longer in power. They have not been for some time.

We are talking about the current government and the current budget.

The government who are shafting hard working families that they promised to support. Disproportionately affecting women, children and the low paid.

mink SHOUTING is how right wing fucknuts the world over get their way. They are right because they're the loudest.

DoctorTwo ... that is rich from you, who should be called the number TwosDoctor, as you actually MAKE UP your own facts to fit your opinions, as I regularly prove.

Now how "fucknuts" is that????

mindGrundy .... clearly one isn't SHOUTING, one is highlighting, on points that proves that the Labour 1997 to 2010 economy - and therefore their increased spending on fat government, welfare and benefits - was built on the sand with the tax receipts and increased national debt of an unsustainable financial bubble.

So would have had to have been corrected by taking government spending back to pre splurge levels, whoever was in power from 2010.

I have to larf as those who hate the facts getting in the way of their opinions and have to deflect; "you're shouting, you're from Tory HQ, you're using the wrong newspapers," I've even had recently, "is English your first language." lololol.

And while its clear Labour are no longer in power, there was no magic economic and social 'DEFAULT' button in 2010 back to 1997, as surely even you understand that the UK government financial/spending options are very different when as we entered this century the UK had just over £400 bil of National Debt and a balanced budget - to 2010 and 2015, with the economy flat and £1.5 tril of National debt and a £70 billion annual overspend?

What happens next year if there is another financial crash of recession and we have another £1 trillion of national debt, as what stage will WE need the IMF to cut UK spending until our books balance THEIR way, £3 or £4 trillion?

one isn't SHOUTING, one is highlighting

above highlighting.

also highlighting

I don't require ransom note style highlighting in caps, thanks. It is patronising. I can decide for myself which bits of your posts I think are most relevant which at the moment is very little seeing as you are off topic.

This thread is about about the current government and the current budget.

If all the supporters of government and the government itself can do it bleat about how they can't do anything because of another government that has not been in power for over 5 years, then what is the point of being in government? it is not their job to bleat on with the past. it is their job to deal with the present. And they are choosing to do that by punishing the ever increasing numbers of the working poor.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33546333

And this

YES or NO? btw is not highlighting. This is the kind of browbeating fuckwittery my emotionally abuse ex used to come out with as a debating tactic.

as is surely even you understand.

The current government were perfectly well aware of the current finances of the country when they chose to stand for election. Having already been in power for the previous 5 years during which time they presided over an ever increasing national debt and a reduction in living standards for all but the richest in society. (fact seeing as you are so fond of those) This prior financial knowledge allowed them to chose their manifesto policies to suit.

They have chosen to make hard working low income families poorer, whilst also decreasing inheritance tax.

They could instead come down harder on the non tax paying rich, or just tax everyone a bit more, or tax luxuries more, or not spend money on trident, or reduce defense spending, or make cuts to pensioner benefits- they after all do not work and some of them are very well off, or they could accept that increasing social inequality and reducing social care budgets is a false economy and actually costs money.

They have many, many choices.

The fact that they chose to cut the money going to to the poorest workers in society, whilst pretending to do them a favour and the fact that you choose to go on about a Labour government that is no longer in power instead of the current budget are both very telling.