Someone was having a laugh – but it was well-targeted.
At the top of March 15’s BBC Newsnight programme, somebody mixed Jeremy Hunt’s Budget speech with the song ‘Sorted for E’s and Wizz’ by Pulp.
The relevance was Hunt’s motif of four ‘pillars’ of the economy – each represented by the letter ‘E’.
But the clip ended with the immortal line, “In the middle of the night it feels all right but then tomorrow morning… ooh, then you come down” – which is almost certainly how we all felt after subjecting Hunt’s speech to a bit of analysis.
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Jeremy Hunt: is his smile just another example of ‘Duper’s Delight’ – the grin politicians wear when they know they’re lying to us, as exemplified so often by Boris Johnson?
Living standards in the UK are still facing their biggest fall since records began in the 1950s – after Jeremy Hunt’s supposedly upbeat Budget.
Amid lower growth predictions than in November when we were facing recession, the Office for Budget Responsibility has said damage caused by rising energy prices and the Covid-19 pandemic could take years to reverse.
House prices will fall an estimated ten per cent by 2025, as rising bills and taxes take a toll on people’s incomes. That is expected to trigger a 20 per cent slump in property transactions, said the OBR.
The tax burden is predicted to hit a post-war high of almost 38 per cent of GDP by 2027/28. And households’ disposable income will fall six per cent over two years.
That is below the seven per cent forecast in November, but represents the largest plunge since records began in 1956-57.
This is no different from the prediction made by the Institute for Fiscal Studies boss Paul Johnson after the then-designated Spring Statement of exactly a year ago. Check out the video for the proof:
So there you have it.
The best that can be said about Hunt’s Budget is that even if it does help the economy, it will help only the very rich.
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Jeremy Hunt: this image is from his financial statement last autumn but the suit is the same, apparently.
This is just to provide a little depth to the Budget coverage yesterday:
£9 billion in tax cuts to corporations, £6 billion cuts to fuel duty & at least £2 billion tax cuts for pensions of highest earners & yet nothing from Hunt for teachers, lecturers, nurses, junior doctors & health workers & civil servants striking against low pay today. Appalling
Does that give you a clearer picture? There will probably be more of this over the next few days, weeks and months.
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I’ve tried to distil the main points in Jeremy Hunt’s Budget statement, and it’s still 40 minutes long!
Nevertheless, if you’re looking for anything in particular, you should be able to find it more quickly than by watching the whole thing.
I was live-tweeting on Twitter at the time and those messages may provide extra information to explain what he meant:
UK will not enter a technical recession this year, says #JeremyHunt. Wow. So how much extra money will the UK's poorest have in their pockets, then? #Budget2023
#JeremyHunt talks about government work to halve inflation – but we know that the government is not doing any such work at all. Inflation will fall as the causes of the price increases become more than a year old and stop being registered. #Budget2023
#JeremyHunt announces funding for #swimmingpool – £63m – capitulating to protest after his prime minister had the National Grid changed, just to heat his own private pool. #Budget2023
Here's some waffle about debt falling. Chancellors have been predicting such falls since 2010, and debt has more than doubled in that time. So take it with a pinch of salt! #Budget2023
Interesting that #JeremyHunt will bring forward measures against promoters of #taxavoidance schemes. I'll want to see what those measures are and how much he expects them to bring into the Treasury. #Budget2023
#JeremyHunt predicts economic growth in every year from 2024 onwards. This is a common claim in Budget statements that also never comes to pass. #Budget2023
Employment: people with disability or long-term sickness should be able to work from home, says #JeremyHunt. Work Capability Assessment to be abolished and benefit entitlement unlinked from work. So ppl will be able to work without losing benefit support. Really? #Budget2023
People forced to leave work because of musculo-skeletal or mental health conditions will receive support. Why not just increase pay to stop stress and improve safety to prevent physical problems? #Budget2023
People on UC looking for work or on low earnings will face stronger sanctions on people failing to meet work search requirements or take up a reasonable job offer. Define reasonable, though. What pay and conditions are acceptable? #Budget2023
#JeremyHunt talks about the most significant improvements – in many areas – in a decade. So he's blaming previous governments of which he was a member for failing to improve incrementally over the years. #Budget2023
The elephant in the room is pay for the people who are going to do the actual work, and the conditions under which they do that work. I hear nothing in #JeremyHunt's speech to address that issue. People who are well-paid provide better work. #Budget2023
And let's remember that we're not really looking at incentives. People won't be given a choice, in many cases – they will be forced to do as they're told. #Budget2023
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The big downsides of the Tory government’s plan to push Universal Credit claimants into more work are starting to be seen now.
These follow on from the decision to change the Administrative Earnings Threshold (AET) for the benefit, by hours worked, to 15 hours per week for single claimants and 24 hours per week for couples.
It means 120,000 people have been moved from ‘Light Touch’ into an ‘Intensive Work Search’ group since February 27.
They’ll be required to attend more face-to-face meetings with a work coach – but I bet they didn’t bargain on the number of meetings they’ll have to take on.
The move means Universal Credit claimants could now be forced to attend jobcentres 10 times in the space of two weeks, according to the Daily Record.
What if a single person is working three hours a day, at awkward times, and the Job Centre is a long way away?
Bear in mind that after receiving UC for 13 weeks, failure to attend Job Centre meetings will mean a benefit sanction – or possibly the loss of it altogether.
The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, whose members in the civil service are likely to have to administer this change, has damned it as an attack on UC claimants.
It has stated: “We oppose the introduction of any regime that results in more sanctions for claimants and that there is a mass of evidence that the threat of sanctions does nothing to help claimants find work.”
That’s a bit of a blow for Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt, who allegedly intends to increase benefit sanctions hugely in his Budget.
The Tory government is insisting that its new regime will help UC claimants get back into work, or increase their earnings – by tailoring its support to focus on specific steps.
But This Writer has seen no evidence to support its claim – and evidence against benefit sanctions has been widely available for many years.
Is this just another attack on the most vulnerable people in the UK?
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Uncannily accurate: The Conservative government’s genuine policy towards PIP claimants may as well have been as it appears in this cartoon from 2017. But what will replace the assessment system it satirises?
I should be pleased.
This Site has campaigned against the Work Capability Assessment for sickness and disability benefits, practically since I started publishing it at the end of 2011.
In my opinion, it has been misused, as a tool to force people who are too ill to work onto job-seeking benefits that carry sanctions if a claimant fails to carry out particular tasks – tasks which the long-term sick and disabled are often clearly incapable of doing.
In many cases, the results have been fatal. I know this because it took me two years to force the Department for Work and Pensions to release figures showing that 2,400 people died within a limited period (two weeks) after being found fit for work, between dates in 2011 and 2014.
That’s right – these people had been found fit to go to work by this hopelessly flawed tick-box assessment system, and then they had proven themselves to be nothing of the sort.
And the Tory government carried on as though nothing was wrong.
I also have personal experience of the system’s flaws. After my partner – Mrs Mike; remember her? – was wrongly put in the work-related activity group for Employment and Support Allowance, she appealed in the hope of being relocated to the support group.
Instead, whoever received her letter slapped a “Do Not Contact” tag on her file for no discernible reason and allowed her claim to end after 12 months, while she waited – in considerable confusion and distress – for a response that was never going to come.
Fortunately, I was around to kick up a stink and get the situation sorted out. But that just highlights the fact that many thousands of people don’t have that kind of help at hand.
And now, we’re told, the Work Capability Assessment is to be scrapped.
But we’re not being told what will replace it.
This Independent article has comments from a couple of organisations that have a stake in what happens:
Trades Union Congress general secretary Paul Novak [said:] “Scrapping the work capability assessment will be welcome if it means an end to assessments that cause anxiety instead of helping people achieve their aspirations,” he added, while urging greater investment in public services to get people off NHS waiting lists and reduce barriers to training.
James Taylor of the disability equality charity Scope said axing the assessment was “the minimum change needed to even begin improving a welfare system that regularly fails disabled people”, and stressed the need for “a more person-centred system” offering “specialist, tailored and flexible” support.
“Those that want to work should be supported. But for some, that’s not an option and disabled people shouldn’t be forced into unsuitable work,” he said. “There is a lot of work to do for the government to restore trust in our benefits system.”
Notice that they both mentioned ways of getting more people back into work; this is Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s aim with the changes to the benefit system.
And that’s why I fear for the future of sickness and disability benefits in the UK.
I think the odious Hunt is planning another push to put sick people into jobs they can’t do. If I’m right, his plan will fail on many levels.
Jeremy Hunt: is he planning to pull the rug out from under disabled people, to fill the gaps in the labour market? If so, he’ll probably make matters worse.
Bad news? Or just the same old story?
Apparently Jeremy Hunt is planning to “reform” (we’ve heard that word before!) disability benefits in order to push people back to work.
According to The Independent, the economics editor of the Financial Times, Chris Giles, said there would probably be a “carrot and stick” approach, although it seems to be more “stick” than “carrot”:
“The charitable way of putting it is that people are better off in work rather than out of work and have better lives and maybe they need a push. That’s not how a lot of people will see it but that’s how the government will see it.”
It looks like the expected inflation-matching benefit increase isn’t going to happen for people on disability or sickness payments!
Either that, or Hunt will make receipt of the benefit conditional on seeking work of some kind – which is a partial contradiction in terms because PIP is supposed to support disabled people in their lives, whether they are in work or not.
The trouble is, people aren’t better-off in work because the policy for the last 13 years and more – across the board – has been to push wages down in order to maximise profits.
That’s why we’ve got so many billionaires at the moment – most of whom didn’t do anything meaningful to get that cash.
Secondly: work won’t give disabled people better lives; it is far more likely to make their condition worse – if employers even bother to take them on.
You don’t get a better life in a low-waged job that creates physical or mental stress that is harmful to your health – possibly because it doesn’t pay enough to cover the bills.
And experience shows that most employers won’t even hire a person with a disability – so that person is left struggling on a benefit that is even less likely to cover the bills, because it has been designed to be that way.
So trying to force disabled people into work isn’t even likely to succeed.
Finally, let’s be perfectly clear about this: more people are on disability benefits now because of the Tories’ cack-handed handling of the Covid crisis.
It’s also because they’ve created huge stresses with low-paid work; people are having nervous breakdowns and physical health problems because employers and the government have made it impossible to make ends meet.
The Independent article makes clear the correlation between the pandemic and benefit take-up:
A new report revealed that a huge wave of early retirement following the Covid pandemic was the biggest cause of labour shortages across the UK. [It said] that the workforce outlook for the UK was “bleak”, finding that economic inactivity has increased by 565,000 people since the start of the pandemic.
There was also a stark increase in long-term sickness since the start of the pandemic, with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) finding that 217,000 people not in work in the year to July reported long-Covid.
However, the report highlighted that most of the rise in sickness-related inactivity was among people already taking leave and those leaving jobs were more likely to be ending their careers early.
Giving up, in other words.
So, in typical Tory fashion, these idiots have created a problem for them to solve… with cruelty.
As Kate Bell, assistant general secretary of the TUC put it:
“The government usually reaches for benefit conditionality when they don’t have anything to say.”
“I think it might happen because they see it as easy and cheap.”
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Smirking Hunt: did he know he was going to do this all along?
After saying he would not provide any more help for households to pay their energy bills, it seems Jeremy Hunt is preparing to do just that.
The Express is reporting that he will extend the government’s £2,500 energy price guarantee for three months, until wholesale energy prices fall below the current Ofgem price cap in July, as they are expected to do.
Previously, the price guarantee was set to be raised to £3,000 in what would have been a £500 rise in energy bills for the average household.
It still represents an increase of £400, as the government’s grant that has kept bills down until now is ending at the beginning of April.
If the claim is true, it will be a major victory for Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis, who had petitioned the government to use some expected savings to protect households.
As This Site stated in February,
According to Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis, when the announcement that the price guarantee would rise by 20 per cent was made in Hunt’s Autumn Statement, energy prices were significantly higher than they are now.
The current expectation is that in July, energy regulator Ofgem’s price cap (rather than the government’s price guarantee) will drop below both the £3,000 set to come in April and the £2,500 limit in force now, so we will all pay less.
This means the government is likely to save around £10 billion on what it was expecting to spend on the price guarantee at the time of the Autumn Statement.
Mr Lewis has written to the Chancellor, informing him of these expectations and calling on him to keep the price guarantee at its current level until July – a measure that will add only £1.5 billion to the current cost (leaving £8.5 billion in the kitty).
He has said this is better than inflicting poverty – and its devastating effects – on the people of the UK.
The Express is now saying the cost is likely to be £3 billion, which is fine because it still leaves £7 billion in expected savings.
Let’s look forward to confirmation of this move in the Budget statement on March 15.
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This is new from Gary Stevenson – and it’s right on the button.
He says Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is blaming the fact that the UK economy is in a terrible state and poor people keep getting poorer on “black swan” events – disasters that should be extremely rare (like black swans). That we’ve been unlucky, basically.
But extremely rich people like him keep getting richer, don’t they?
So is it really bad luck? Or is it a plan?
Here’s Gary:
It’s an excuse.
Hunt, those who came before him, and his entire political movement, have created a system in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer – but is using news stories as scapegoats.
It is our duty to challenge him on his nonsense every time he spouts it.
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Is this the latest Tory attack on people with long-term illnesses?
According to the Mirror, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is planning to pressurise GPs into refusing to sign people off work with long-term illnesses, even if they are too physically ill to perform any work at all.
This would mean he is planning to starve them to death.
They would still have to try to claim Universal Credit, but would be unable to show that they deserved it because they could not provide medical evidence of inability to work. Therefore they would receive nothing.
Attempting to work would simply worsen their condition and may also drive them to an early death.
Of course, anybody who finds it odd that a former Health Secretary would want to send UK citizens to their deaths simply hasn’t been paying attention for the last 13 years.
You can read the Mirror piece by clicking on the link here:
Now this rotten to the core piece of crap Government wants to force the sick back to work. They would send kids up chimneys if we let them https://t.co/iJ08bZ8qrj
It has sparked alarm, with Dr Deepti Gurdasani, epidemiologist and senior lecturer at Queen Mary University, posting on Twitter: “Yeah, this’ll really help because long COVID and chronic illness responds so well to being forced to push through and work long hours regardless of how ill one feels…”
Let’s hope that the UK’s GPs still have a shred of decency about them and remember that they have a duty to do nothing to harm people who present as patients.
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