Tag Archives: budget

The Budget won’t affect the geographic influences on your prosperity. Here’s Gary Stevenson

Poverty map: if you look at a map of the UK showing GDP per head of population in each region, you can see where the rich people live – and the huge swathes of land where they don’t.

Jeremy Hunt’s Budget speech – and most political announcements – made many references to the well-being of the United Kingdom as a whole.

One of the reasons for this is that, region by region, the economic picture – the well-being of the people – is not as rosy as he’d like to suggest.

Bitty little funding announcements for projects in far-flung parts of the country won’t help those areas as a whole, for the simple reason that the people with all the money don’t live there and don’t care what happens there.

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Here’s Gary Stevenson to explain why the Tories’ big mistake is concentrating all the cash among a very few people, who all live in the southeast of England [WARNING: if you can’t tolerate swearing, you won’t like this]:


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The bigger Budget picture – that British politics is glossing over – is terrifying

Jeremy Hunt: he was all smiles when delivering his Budget but the underlying implications will harm almost everybody in the UK who has to earn a living or draws a pension.

They’re trying to hide something from you, you know.

According to Torsten Bell, over at the Resolution Foundation, there’s more to it than the winners – National Insurance payers – and losers – pensioners, landlords and pensioner-landlords.

Jeremy Hunt’s speech, he wrote, paints a picture of “a country that is somehow managing to combine higher taxes, crumbling public services and debt levels that are struggling to fall”.

He warned that “British politics is trying to generally gloss over this bigger picture pre-polling day, not least given the tax rises and spending cuts pencilled in to follow”.

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Apparently the tax rises and spending cuts will be necessitated by the fact that Hunt has now splurged on two sets of tax cuts – now, and back in the Autumn.

Hidden in the details are the consequences: “£14 billion a year of lower debt interest was eaten up by lower tax receipts,” meaning Hunt – or any new Chancellor coming in after an election – will want to find a way to make up for that loss, probably with more taxes.

But they’ll then run into the problem of how to pay. The population is increasing rapidly – a fact that he didn’t dwell on in his speech, but one that may mean a million more people living here by the end of the decade and, yes, it’s due to immigration. This will mean more income for the Treasury, sure – but not an improvement in living standards as the amount people keep for themselves will not increase.

And there’s gloom over the number of us who are going to be too sick to work – due, again, to Tory political policies. “This knocks 0.5 per cent off employment, unwinding the GDP boost from a bigger population.” And it seems likely that a Tory or Labour government will simply try to deny sick people any state benefits in the hope that they’ll die off, as so many others have over the last 14 years.

With the economy in the doldrums, Hunt should have held off on more tax cuts – his whole package will cost £65 billion over the next five years. Instead, he picked Labour’s pocket – using two of the income streams Keir Starmer’s party intended to use to fund its own policies, if it wins an election.

So he scrapped the non-dom tax regime and extended the windfall tax on energy firms. That accounts for one-third of the tax cuts. The rest is being funded by borrowing, meaning that the Tories are once again marking themselves out as the party of financial IRresponsibility.

The National Insurance cuts may seem nice for employees – at the moment. But “£8 billion is being raised by the freezes to thresholds for employer NI… In time this will feed through into lower pay levels for employees.

“And then we come to the biggest group of losers: pensioners, who are already exempt from NI but affected by freezes to Income Tax thresholds. All eight million taxpaying pensioners will see their taxes increase, by an average of £1,000 – an £8 billion collective hit.”

Pensioners contain the largest remaining group of Conservative voters. This Writer wonders whether those Tories will continue to vote tribally in the face of this betrayal.

So does Torsten Bell: “This is the Conservative core vote losing out, as the next chart spells out. Whether this is an intentional choice to pivot towards those the Tories are struggling to win over, or a bit of an accident, is far from clear… It’s one hell of a political gamble.”

In fairness, though: “The focus on working-age employees reflects that they already pay higher rates of tax than pensioners or landlords. Furthermore, pensioners’ income growth has outstripped that of working households for some time.”

Now comes the burn.

“Personal tax increases combine with chunky rises in the corporation tax take (which is being sustained at its highest level this century) and wider economic changes to ensure this will be the greatest tax-raising Parliament since the Second World War. Tax relative to GDP is rising from 33.1 per cent in 2019-20 to 36.5 per cent in 2024-25 even with the pre-election tax cut rush.“But the tax rises don’t stop on polling day. Highly unusually, £19 billion of tax rises have already been announced that will  come into effect after the election. So the tax take is set to rise further to 37.1 per cent in 2028-29 (the highest since 1948). The increase since 2019-20 amounts to £3,900 per household.“Further tax rises are not all that is coming after the election. Even with loose fiscal rules, the tax cuts announced by Jeremy Hunt are only affordable by pencilling in major spending cuts to come. Real per-capita day-to-day spending for unprotected departments (think prisons, courts, FE colleges and local government) is set to fall by 13 per cent between 2024-25 and 2028-29 – equivalent to cuts of £19 billion and three-quarters (71 per cent) of the cuts inflicted on these departments in the first austerity parliament (2010-2015). The idea that such cuts can be delivered in the face of faltering public services is a fiscal fiction.

“More plausible, but deeply undesirable and damaging for growth, are plans to cut Public Sector Net Investment from 2.5 per cent today to 1.7 per cent of GDP by 2028-29 (a £26 billion decline). For too long Britain has been living off its past, rather than investing in its future. On current plans, we risk repeating this mistake in the decade ahead.”

The conclusion is scathing:

“The big picture for Britain has not changed at all. It remains a country where taxes are heading up not down, and one where incomes are stagnating. In fact, they are set to remain below their level at the last general election when voters return to the polls – the first time this has happened on record.

“Big tax cuts may or may not affect the outcome of that election, but the task for whoever wins is huge.

“Not only will they have to wrestle with implausible spending cuts, but they’ll also need to restart sustained economic growth – the only route to ending Britain’s stagnation.”


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Hunt’s Budget cold-shoulders society’s poorest, says disability organisation

Jeremy Hunt’s Budget failed to offer support to millions of disabled people, despite mountains of evidence on their economic and social hardship, according to Disability Rights UK.

Perhaps he hadn’t been lobbied for it by Conservative MPs who had in turn been lobbied by groups (possibly of Tory donors).

The only exception – described as “meagre” by the organisation – was a six-month continuation of the Household Support Fund, money that allows local authorities to make discretionary payments to people in need. It is now set to close when next winter starts.

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The Disability Poverty Campaign Group (DPCG), of which Disability Rights UK is a member, had called on the Chancellor to help Disabled citizens struggling with household bills and inadequate social support.

In a statement, the organisation said:

DPCG asked that action was taken to increase social security to meet the essentials of life including food, energy and medication and the extra costs of disability; invest in public services to enable Disabled people to receive health services, educational support, and social care; and to ensure that housing and transport were accessible and affordable.

We were, alongside others representing the poorest and most excluded in society, deeply concerned by the Government’s failure to acknowledge or address growing levels of poverty and to invest in grossly underfunded public services such as social care and educational support to Disabled children and young people.

With the Government set to be questioned by the United Nations on 18 March on its record on achieving equality for Disabled people, this Budget is yet more evidence of its lack of commitment to improving our life chances.

Source: DR UK Statement on Spring Budget: ‘Government Turns its Back on the Poorest in Society’ | Disability Rights UK


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More nonsense from Hunt: we’re not better-off than foreign countries

Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak: the prime minister seems to be telling his Chancellor, “Good one about us compared with Germany, Italy and France. Tell them another!”

Jeremy Hunt padded his Budget statement with a lot of feel-good nonsense that would be better-placed in a work of fiction than in an official government statement.

One of these was that the UK economy has grown faster since 2010 than those of Germany, France and Italy.

This might be claimed at a national level – but it falls down when one examines the economic benefits per person.

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According to BBC Political Editor Chris Mason,

Labour folk get in touch to say it is rather different if you look at GDP per capita – the size of the economy per person; how well off, on average, we each feel.

Labour say on that measure the UK has lower stats than Germany, France and Italy.

So – as far as you are concerned – he was lying, because you are not better-off than people from those other countries, in relation to your living standards in 2010.


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How Hunt’s Budget can affect you – according to someone you can trust

We’re learning that much of what Jeremy Hunt said in his Budget statement is not true – so it’s good to have a comment on it from someone we know we can trust: Money Saving Expert, Martin Lewis.

Here he is:

The most important aspect of this is that employees earning between £12,500-£26,000 are likely to be slightly worse-off because of frozen tax thresholds; if you earn that much, you’ll pay more tax.

Also good is the Child Benefit threshold change, which Mr Lewis discusses in depth as he was instrumental in bringing it about.

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And debt relief orders: the charge of £90 is being abolished, meaning people who wanted to deal with their debts but couldn’t find the money to do it will now be able to. That’s a Citizens Advice campaign that has been heard.

So there it is. You can refer to the video clip for other details. The rest of Hunt’s speech – as far as you’re concerned – was noise.


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Jeremy Hunt misled us about the National Debt

Jeremy Hunt’s last Budget looks set to go down in history as the biggest pack of lies ever told by a politician in one statement.

It’s hard to know where to start picking at his hour-long stream of nonsense, but here’s one item the BBC has teased out, on the national debt. I refer you to “head of statistics” Robert Cuffe:

In his Budget statement, the Chancellor said that the UK’s debt was “falling in line with our fiscal rules”.

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The government’s rules only require that it falls once in the next five years: between 2028 and 2029.

In other years of the forecast, debt is not set to fall – it will rise three times and hold flat once.

The UK’s debt is forecast to be higher five years from now.

People will have heard him say that the National Debt is falling when in fact it isn’t.

Possibly the worst aspect of this is that it doesn’t really matter. It would be a worry if the UK was unable to pay interest on the debt, or it spiralled out of control, causing an inflation crisis. But the recent increase in inflation had nothing to do with government debt.

The UK’s current problems arise from what the government has been doing with the money it has been spending, that has caused the debt – giving it to very rich friends of the Tory Party, in return for nothing at all, meaning that they have had the wherewithal to buy the nation’s assets – businesses and property – pricing the rest of us out of our own market.

Hunt didn’t have a word to say about all that because it suits him to hide the fact that deliberate government actions have made most of us worse-off.


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Jeremy Hunt’s Budget fails to cut the tax burden after all

Jeremy Hunt: from the look on his face, this might have been Mr Bean’s Budget. Mr Bean-counter?

At long last, the Tories have unveiled the final Budget of their 2010-2024 government – and what a sad example of political opportunism it was!

Chancellor (for the moment) Jeremy Hunt was widely expected to use it to sabotage a future Labour government by imposing tax cuts for no good reason and then challenging Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves to explain which taxes she would restore to pay for Labour’s planned economic programme.

And what vital public services does Hunt propose to end? It was unlikely we would ever be told because nobody cares; he won’t have to think about it if there’s an election soon.

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Fair play to Labour neoliberal Angela Eagle for using Prime Minister’s Questions to ask which Tory achievement prime minister Rishi Sunak views with the most pride – the highest taxes since World War II, or the longest period of wage depression since the Napoleonic War.

Sunak responded by citing his damp squib furlough scheme that he contends kept jobs safe during the Covid crisis. He didn’t respond on the issues Eagle mentioned because he didn’t have to; they will be for someone else to tackle.

Hunt was wheeled on at 12.30 and promised permanent tax cuts – so our expectations were proved correct.

He started by referring to people on Universal Credit who have to take out loans – falling into debt by so doing – while waiting for their claims to be approved. He’s increasing the repayment period to four months. Big deal! They shouldn’t have to take out a loan in the first place and only have to do so because the Tories impose a five-week delay on payments.

He’s extending an alcohol duty freeze – it was due to rise by three per cent this year. But will prices stay the same or will manufacturers and pubs simply raise their prices and take higher profits.

He’s extending the fuel duty freeze as expected, maintaining the 5p cut. He reckons it will save the average driver £50 next year – but will it? Fossil fuel giants and supermarkets are also expected to raise prices anyway and take the cash as profit.

The Household Support Fund to support people on low incomes is being extended for six months. One must take it that this is in the absence of any plan to improve household incomes on a permanent basis.

He referred to the National Debt, saying it will fall to “just” 92.9 per cent of GDP in 2028-9. It’s meaningless; the debt was 250 per cent of GDP at the end of World War II and Clement Attlee’s – socialist – Labour government of 1945-51 ushered in a period of expansion that had not been seen before or since.

He said the economy is set to grow faster than similar countries; nobody cares. Where is the money going? It isn’t going to the people who will use the money but to the Tories’ rich friends – who hide it in banks.

Hunt claims his government is providing more investment, more jobs and better public services.

On investment, he says businesses are investing £30 billion more than during the last Labour government. Gosh. What’s that after inflation?

He cutting investment taxes for businesses by more than £10 billion – money that will go to shareholders and CEOs and won’t do the rest of us any good at all.

He’s providing £200 million to extend the Recovery Growth scheme for small businesses. And he said he’d increase the VAT registration threshold to £90,000, taking thousands of businesses out of paying VAT – another loss to the Treasury, although possible a benefit to the economy, depending on how those small businesses spend the extra cash.

He announced new devolved powers to local areas to support projects there, despite claims of corruption in at least one project that is already running.

He says the government is on track to deliver the building of a million new houses during the current government. Strange – the news has been full of stories about developers delaying building work.

He’s giving £100 million of Levelling-Up funding to support “cultural projects” in communities. What will be the knock-on effect for the economy?

He says the UK has a huge innovative technology economy. If that’s true, why have wages stagnated over the last 14 years? Why has the economy as a whole stagnated too? If these industries are doing so well, why has the government not intervened to ensure the benefits are spread as widely as possible?

He says the government will explore how people can take their pension pots with them when they change jobs. This would be good – but This Writer won’t hold his breath waiting for it.

Turning to other growth industries, Hunt refers to nuclear energy – which is a contradiction in terms as nuclear energy is highly-polluting.

In the creative industry, he’s increasing tax relief for visual effects in movies, and 40 per cent relief on film studios’ business rates. These are expanding industries – soon to be second only to Hollywood in the world, Hunt says. Why is he cutting their taxes when they are clearly doing fine and well able to pay? This is economic sabotage.

He announces new tax reliefs for theatres, saying this should be of particular interest to the Shadow Chancellor who specialises in acting like a Tory. This is a jibe that should strike home – but it renders all his talk of higher taxes by Labour hollow; Labour is a Substitute Tory Party.

Oh, there’s investment in AstraZeneca, the drugs firm that developed one of the controversial Covid-19 vaccines. With questions unanswered about the effect of the vaccines, is this wise?

Public services: He refers to investment in 20,000 police officers halving burglaries and violent crime – which is a lie. The Tories cut police by more than 20,000 and numbers haven’t recovered.

He says spending on public services has increased – by one-third, in real terms, in the NHS. Where has the money gone, then? We’re not seeing it in provision.

Oh – he says the money needs to be used wisely. He’s keeping a planned one per cent growth in real terms, but wants to “reform” public spending.

In the NHS, he’ll spend £3.4 billion to modernise IT systems in order to unlock £35 billion by slashing the time lost in form-filling, carrying out operations and reducing missed appointments. In fairness, that seems good. How much of it will be lost in private-sector profits?

Apparently the NHS will have nearly £6 billion in additional funding. Why, then, is there no more money for junior doctors who earn only slightly more money per hour than the bouncer at This Writer’s local pub?

The Chancellor has been mentioning lobbying by fellow Tory MPs; this is election-year campaigning – he’s trying to flag them up as useful for their communities. But are they? Who lobbied those MPs for the measures he has announced and how will they improve living standards among the rest of us?

Taxes: Hunt says the money we earn doesn’t belong to the government but to the people. This is nonsense; money is the oil that lubricates the economy and governments always control the amount we have because they control the amount we are taxed.

To prove this: Hunt went on to announce taxation of smoking and vaping, in order to discourage it by forcing smokers to lose more of their cash. See how it works? The money you keep is always dependant on a government’s priorities and that is why the richest people in the UK have increased their wealth massively over the last 14 years.

Non-dom taxation has been a political football in the run-up to the Budget. Hunt is abolishing the current system – as expected, to derision from the Opposition benches. He’ll replace it with a “residency-based” system. New arrivals from April 2025 will not have to pay tax for four years, but from that point onward, they’ll pay the same taxes as the rest of us.

Finally – the biggest announcement was a cut of two per cent in National Insurance – from 10 per cent to eight per cent for employees, and from eight per cent to six per cent for the self-employed.

It’s a £900 cut for employees and £450 for the self-employed (showing how those of us who work for ourselves are struggling?) – but what will be lost as a result?

He didn’t say. This is a Budget that is heavy on the tiny details of individual funding announcements and light on the details of public services that will be cut.

Oh, and I’m hearing that the overall tax burden is still rising because tax thresholds – the amount of earning that people can do before paying tax – are still frozen. So much for the “tax-cutting budget”!


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Will Jeremy Hunt give the supermarkets and fossil fuel giants another £5bn bung?

Is this an accurate Budget prediction?

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Spring Budget: Tory – and Labour – economics are nonsense

Jeremy Hunt: he’s trying to gaslight us into thinking we need to save money. We don’t.

The Conservatives want to cut the civil service again, for no very good reason. But the important part of Jeremy Hunt’s comment on the subject is that he thinks we can have better public services without spending money on them.

Liam Thorp is absolutely right:

Cutting funding for public services has not improved them. In fact, they are considerably inferior – across the board – to their efficiency in 2010.

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And it seems clear that taking the money away from this useful purpose hasn’t stopped the Tories from spending money like it was going out of fashion:

Only £100 billion? Gary Stevenson reckons it’s eight times as much.

And with the Budget coming up, Hunt also made another outrageous claim that should be blown away as soon as possible:

In fact, as the article states:

in the last four years, five different Tory chancellors have pledged to bring taxes down – only for them to rise to a historic level.

In fact, the current tax burden in the UK is the highest since World War 2.

The problem is that the Tories are trying to gaslight us into thinking that national finances are like household budgets – and they aren’t.

Sadly, this thinking appears to have become contagious as Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is coming out with the same nonsense:

Oh, and the media are keen to echo the lie, too – but some of us are debunking it:

Bear this in mind:

The simple fact is that money never runs short in an economy like that of the UK, where the government can create as much as it needs.

Money is simply a tool – the lubricant that allows the economy to work by making it easy for us to buy and sell the goods and services that we need.

Government creates money to fund projects that it believes the country needs – or at least, it should. In recent years, the Tories have simply given hundreds of billions of pounds to their rich friends for no good reason at all.

As a result, those rich people have bought up the nation’s assets, making everything more expensive for the rest of us – those least able to afford them. The majority of the people of the UK have been priced out of their own market.

So we now live in a country where everything is phenomenally expensive, and we’re being taxed more than in living memory for services that are rubbish.

And neither the Tories nor Labour intend to do anything about it.

You would have to be insane to give your vote to either of them.


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Tax cuts? The Tory tax take is RISING after Hunt’s autumn statement

Jeremy Hunt: he announced tax cuts but we’ll be paying more. No wonder he’s looking less than sane.

What a swindle.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt announced tax cuts in his autumn statement yesterday, sure.

But he has frozen the thresholds at which people start paying taxes at particular rates. With pay rises taking place, this means more people will pay more tax.

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Here’s Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis to explain it far better than This Writer can:


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