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?

Ask the government. They are the one leaking the info.

Allegedly.

Minor versus the rhetoric from no.10 and 11.

The press literally quote where they have heard it from.

Spot on.

The ‘scaremongering’ is as a result of the government saying that they will make tough choices etc and wanging on about the ‘black hole’ while refusing to rule out various tax rises that affect millions of ordinary people. The callous treatment of pensioners has shown that they are happy to cause worry and actual harm if it meets their idealogical aims. So of course people are worried- speculation is a natural and rational consequence of that.

"The UK Treasury has said it will need to take difficult decisions in next week’s budget after higher debt interest payments and pay awards for public sector workers pushed government borrowing to £16.6bn last month – the third highest September figure on record"

From the guardian this morning.

So I'm speculating that means the government's difficult decisions will target the people that they don't like.

That's me and my dh.

So that will be disabled people and people receiving benefits in general.
Benefit scroungers who aren’t doing their utmost to go back to work.

Yay. Sounds about right.

Why don't they like you?

Well, Labour has abandoned Tory plans to humiliate PIP claimants, so that's one positive.

The question here is ‘what are their ideological aims?’.

Because they seem, to me, to be further and further away from what I’d thought Labour was standing for.
From a proper publicly funded NHS to supporting the most vulnerables to having an economy that works for all, not the wealthiest.

Have they? What has Labour said that makes you think that?

Because all I’ve heard so far was removing mobility as a reason good enough to not work and using vouchers fir PIP.

Yes that high debt was covered by this morning headlines. Tax payer debt servicing will be incredibly high

Because we are middle income earners with a mortgage, we own a medium sized business and have parents who wish us to inherit their house. Fair game as far as Labour are concerned.

I think that because it is what Timms said in response to a Parliamentary question.

The PIP vouchers etc. were in the Tory green paper, which Labour has said it won't be responding to- i.e they are ditching the measures consulted on in the green paper.

Obviously we don't yet know what Labour's plans are for PIP further down the line, but the immediate threat has gone and there will be no nasty PIP related surprises in the budget.

"The consultation on Modernising support for independent living: the health and disability green paper ran for 12 weeks and closed on Monday 22 July.

There were over 16,000 responses to the consultation, which demonstrates the depth of feeling about the previous Government’s proposals. I can confirm that responses to the set of proposals on the reform of Personal Independence Payment were mixed and for some proposals consistently negative.

We do not intend to publish a response to the previous Government’s consultation. We will be considering our own plans for social security in due course and will fulfil our continued commitment to work with disabled people so that their views and voices are at the heart of all that we do"

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-10-04/6515

How would Labour stop you inheriting? Inheritance tax might go up, but you would still be in line to inherit from your parents.

Correct.

Net result will be a loss of 25-50 bps in interest rate cuts...

@MNISLW what does that mean generally? For interest rates etc

Mortgages will go up.

Yes or more probably there will be a dislocation between base and commercial rates.

Interesting you mention that - another thread covered a posters experience of attempting to claim PIP - it was not successful.

Do you have the latest data by any chance?

Hmm. I think I posted them on another thread a while back. But PIP is notoriously hard to claim and a very humiliating process and has been ever since it was introduced by the Tories.

Whoever that poster was, I hope they appealed.

Got you, thanks.

Found the stats:

Award rates for all PIP claims (excluding withdrawn cases) over the period February 2019 to January 2024 (last 5 years) show that:

41% receive an award for normal rules new claims

69% receive an award for normal rules DLA reassessment claims

99% of SREL (people nearing the end of life) claimants are awarded PIP

So, as you can see, the majority of new claims for PIP are initially turned down. DLA to PIP far higher success rate.