Anyone else irritated by the media coverage of budget?

[flymetothemoo]

Clearly, if it was at all possible then Labour would want to spend billions / on public services, fixing everything. The fact that they are having to be so frugal is NOT what they would choose, politically or materially!

Clearly it's the last government's fault we are in this position. And yet Labour are the bad guys, according to the press, and even the BBC and the Guardian are contributing to this stoking of negativity and fear.

What are they supposed to do in terms of the budget?

They must find the money from somewhere. They've promised to protect working people, employees NI, income tax etc. So they have to find it from somewhere. It might be employers, or inheritance tax loopholes, or benefit loopholes.

They are damned if they do and if they don't aren't they?

They also weren't planning to find an end to strikes any time soon, clearly.

Most of the tax cuts were promised by 2027 and by 2029/30.

Were they? They promised pensioners a tax cut next year. The OBR was clear before the election that their tax promises were undeliverable.

Not all in one go;

From April 2025, we will increase the personal allowance for pensioners by introducing a new age-related personal allowance. This is a tax cut of around £100 for eight million pensioners next year – rising to £275 a year by the end of the Parliament.

Hunt's plans would have benefitted from the '£10bn Bank of England windfall' announced in September this year;

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/winter-fuel-cut-hope-rachel-reeves-budget-headroom-569scc88f

The OBR are not very accurate with their forecasts:
In September 2022, the OBR said we would have a year-long recession in 2023, GDP would fall by 2% and inflation would peak at 13.5% in January 2023 - we didn't have a year-long recession, GDP didn't fall by 2% (GDP rose slightly in 2023) and inflation was 10.1% (not 13.5%) in January 2023.