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?

If the last government hadn’t handed out £27 billion in NI contributions the economy would be looking a lot healthier.

Meanwhile Trump has filed a federal complaint accusing the Labour Party of interfering in the US elections.

Way to go Starmer and team.

And before others say there is precedent, you forget how vindictive Trump can be, so common sense and realpolitik should have prevailed.

What were they thinking 🙈
Great start to US/UK relations if Trump wins the election!

And they lost the election so how about we focus on the government that is actually in power?

Because context and the inheritance from the previous government is relevant.

No.

This is because Labour reassured public before election that they have fully costed budget. Because they told Sunak lied when he told Labour budget will cost households £2k average.

This is because a few weeks in Labour delivered that lie about £22bn blackhole, most of which was of their own decision making and whilst they had all access to numbers before election.

This is because they are talking now about £40bn blackhole.

It's all because of their lies.

They should have told public before election what they are going to do.

This. The country needs to have an honest conversation. We are poorer as a nation than we were 10 years ago. We either need to accept that public services will be reduced or accept that we need to pay more tax and will have less spare money as a result. Successive governments are trying to kid everyone that they can deliver better services without increasing tax/spending.

Yes the amount of times they repeated ‘fully funded, fully costed’

@MNISLW that is a clanger too, bet they regret that LinkedIn content

Yes and no. It depends on government's own policy.

The real reason why they want to go for tax rises is ideological, it's for redistribution. Wealthier people don't tend to vote for Labour, the poorest ones are in Reform's camp now. So Labour want to please own voters by screwing top 20-25% badly (those are unlikely to vote for them anyway) and moving next 20-25% who're in between to Labour grounds.

I disagree.

I think the government should put 1p on higher rate tax. That would raise a massive amount of money and wouldn't disproportionately hit anyone. There would be no fear/scaremongering about who/how we're going to get hit. Currently, rich people are selling property/investments/goodness knows what, running abroad and generally panicking. Not good. And already hurting ordinary people, like my brother who rented a flat from a good landlord - who, as a result of Labour's chat and election, panicked, issued a tenancy termination and has sold the flat quickly. The supply of rental properties in his area is now precisely zero.

Instead of the sensible option of 1p on higher rate tax, the government are going for the politics of division. Private school VAT etc. I saw in the news this week that they are going to need to pay Eton nearly £5million as a result of this idiotic policy. And Eton won't be the only ones getting money from the govt.

We know they need money. If they tried to get this transparently and fairly, most would support it. But they are snaking around scaring people and causing uncertainty and panic motivated behaviour.

I think the government should put 1p on higher rate tax. That would raise a massive amount of money and wouldn't disproportionately hit anyone.

Well, this would actually hit those higher rate taxpayers. Top 1% already pay 30% of all tax revenues. And again, to win election Labour promised not to increase income tax, NI and VAT. They conveniently added "on working people" though. And their definition of working people was published as well.

I know what they promised. They were stupid to do it.

Higher rate tax payers can manage the 1p and the people not hit would be basic rate tax payers, which is fair enough.

I know that the top 1% pay a vast amount of the tax revenue. I'm not aiming at them specifically, although they would obviously be hit. The percentage of tax payers paying higher rate tax is projected in the next couple of years to be approaching 20% of tax payers. So hitting that 20% of tax payers with 1p would be acceptable IMO, given the desperate need for money.

FGS.

@Wn38475

You raise some really good points. As the old adage goes "if you vote right wing then you have no heart but if you vote left wing then you have no brain ".

The problem I see with Labour fiscal policies is that they are ideologically and emotionally driven, but they haven't thought them through.

For example:
VAT on private school fees- ideologically the parents that send their children to private schools are wealthy, the children at such schools benefit from smaller class sizes etc which many see as unfair. Some lets tax these rich parents more with VAT on school fees.
However thinking this through- if schools have to pay VAT then they can also claim it back. Some parents will switch to state schools (and the best state schools the parents can find). This will cost the Government more money in providing this education (or alternatively keep the same education budget and teach more children with the same money by providing a lower service to all). The analysis shows that if 15% switch from private to state then the VAT policy raises a net zero tax revenue. Anymore than 15% then it starts costing the taxpayer.

Winter fuel allowance- the emotional argument is why should rich pensioners get wfa when many workers on much lower incomes struggle with energy bills and don't get any support. By removing the wfa allowance except those on pensions credit the government saves £200 per pensioner. But guess what pensioners that were eligible for pensions credits but didn't claim them are now signing up in droves and the average pension credit is £3900 per year. So you only need one person signing up to pension credits to remove the savings from taking away the £200 wfa from twenty pensioners.

There is similar arguments against abolishing non dom tax status, CGT changes on rental properties has secondary impacts as your brother has found out etc etc.

I rather suspect Labour just gifted Trump a second term.

Starmer will probably compound matters by agreeing to the Commonwealths slavey reparation claims.

Can this lot get anything right???

You overestimate the power of a few foreign campaigners if you seriously think they’ve gifted electoral success to a candidate in a neck and neck race.

They’re getting plenty right.

https://pledgeprogress.co.uk/

My interpretation of that is this is another of Trumps' excuses that he's putting into play early so he can have an excuse incase he loses.

We all know he won't go quietly. He can't use the "stolen" election theme again, and he won't want to blame Russian interference, so why not blame the "far left" in the UK, when in reality, Labour are basically centre left at best.

I'm almost at the point of hoping he does get elected again purely because he then wouldn't be able to run again and he can sod off forever in 4 years time!

The negative PR is immeasurable.

A few campaigners? Do you want to answer that again?

You would accept foreign interference in our general elections then, correct?

You think there isn’t foreign interference in our elections? Seriously? How do you feel about Farage helping out his mate? Why do you think Evgeny Lebedev was given a peerage?

Deflection.

Lets focus on the topic du jour.

So it’s OK for Farage to interfere in a foreign election but not anyone else? Got it. 🙄

At least @BIossomtoes is consistent - whenever anything's raised about Labour, this poster is very quick with "but what about Tory or Farage or whoever". 🙄

Opposite side would get "Tory HQ" label immediately

And you refuse to answer, got it.

Married to Labour, got it.

Absolutely.

Its akin to debating with a pubescent teenager.

Are you seriously using Farage's behaviour to defend KS? That's a new low.

Is there anything you won't defend Blossom? It's a bit worrying that anyone can have such utterly blind faith in any government or party.