| Good budget ? I thought so on 10:06 - Oct 29 with 323 views | underspaces |
Not bad - but still absolutely nothing on Plan 2 student loans.
I left university with £45k debt, I now have £65k debt, and yet I've paid £10k into paying it off.
The interest rates have skyrocketed. It's retrospectively changing the terms of a loan - which is... loan sharking! |  | |  |
| Good budget ? I thought so on 10:14 - Oct 29 with 299 views | Churchman |
| Good budget ? I thought so on 09:39 - Oct 29 by Pinewoodblue |
I have a collection of Grumpy T shirts, Grumpy mugs etc. brought back from Florida over the years by family members.
One year daughter held up a Grumpy t shirt and asked Grandson if Grandad would like this?
It was given the seal of approval. Later he explained why I would like it. I already had one like it needless to say it was changed. |
Tremendous! Your identity is confirmed by the truthfulness of yoof!
My ambition was to be labelled as a Poltroon. A fabulous word rarely used or seen unless you are a fan of George MacDonald Fraser’s magnificent Flashman.
Sadly I failed in that ambition. |  | | |
| Good budget ? I thought so on 13:39 - Oct 29 with 194 views | Pinewoodblue |
| Good budget ? I thought so on 08:10 - Oct 29 by Churchman |
Really?
I didn’t see it as much if anything beyond tinkering around the edges. Maybe a non-budget is the best form of one. Budgets are outdated anyway. If something needs doing, put it to the HoC and do it. Why store it up to a couple of points in the year? There’s no need given how this works in practice.
Same with ‘manifestos’. I hear plenty on income tax cannot be raised because of the manifesto pledge, yet I don’t recall Blair/Brown’s policy of scrapping immigration rules and opening the doors to unlimited immigration in the late 1990s being in any manifesto. Election promises or objectives are fine, but I don’t see why governments should wed themselves to them and ignore when it suits them.
Same with referendums - there’s no obligation to enact a result if the whole question asked was complete nonsense in the first place. That’s what happened with Brexit. A decision based on no information whatsoever beyond a lie scribbled on a bus and an empty promise.
Lastly, the Chancellor. Healey is a liar and a political opportunist. In June he said a proposed settlement for the defence investment plan (DIP) "falls well short of what is required for defence and the country at this dangerous time. In a resignation letter, he said the prime minister had been "unable" and the Treasury "unwilling" to "commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats". (source: his words and the BBC)
How noble of him. Or maybe not. Once Sir Kier was booted out, the man of principle slithered into the next biggest job in government as fast as you like and hoofed the defence can down the road even faster. His actions or inactions were for precisely the reasons that he resigned over.
There’s no excuse. He lied. What he was actually doing was unhitching himself from dead-man-walking Starmer for his own political gain.
That’s why I’m not interested in what Healey has to say. I’ve read the released details and of course hope this tinkering improves things for a few people, but I’m not holding my breath. Nothing of importance seems to have come from it. That suggests to me all Labours efforts, as they have been for months, are being plunged into an election next spring, or earlier. |
Manifestos are relevant at the time they are written, circumstances change and if they significant policies need to change to meet needs, it is a weak excuse you can’t do something because you pledged you wouldn’t.
It wasn’t a budget to meet current needs but one to keep the economy ticking over.
What surprises me is that the actions they have taken are not focused enough. Two examples if a pensioner has an income over £35,000 they have to pay back winter fuel allowance but if husband & wife both have a joint income of £60,000 they still receive it.
This £100 energy payment going direct into bank accounts if your house is in bands A-D is another example. It isn’t focused enough no way of identifying need. Our current home, purchased over 25 years ago, was originally graded E, a neighbour complained and it was moved down to D.
Council tax Banding simply doesn’t identify need.
The plans to give a percentage of Business rates, and later a percentage of income tax will be counter productive. The money available in prosperous areas will be significantly more than in poorer areas. It will increase the gap between prosperous and poorer areas. Not exactly socialism at work.
What was needed was an adjustment to Income tax. Increase tax allowances while, at the same time, increase income tax by 1p in the pound in such a way that the total amount of income tax collected doesn’t increase.If feasible also bring back the 10% tax band.
Bring back socialism. |  |
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| Good budget ? I thought so on 13:44 - Oct 29 with 191 views | Billywitch |
£100 support for the people of the UK for ever increasing heating costs... compare that to the £10bn given to the money pit war.
quality stuff |  | | |
| Good budget ? I thought so on 13:46 - Oct 29 with 187 views | flykickingbybgunn |
Help on energy bills is a misleading action.
All it has done is to give £100 to everybody by taxing everybody to get the money. |  | | |
| Good budget ? I thought so on 14:18 - Oct 29 with 138 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Good budget ? I thought so on 13:46 - Oct 29 by flykickingbybgunn |
Help on energy bills is a misleading action.
All it has done is to give £100 to everybody by taxing everybody to get the money. |
Of course, it’s just redistribution as most government spending is. Although about 15% of it will go on the never never of course.
I’m not sure what else they could do now to directly help people. They need some sort of proxy indicator of need and while this isn’t perfect it’s probably a lot cheaper than means testing. And they can’t do much to tackle the cause of the rising bills in the short term.
They could be ramping up our renewable generation capacity far more quickly than they are and increasing the speed of transition away from fossil fuels, but there’s a mixed record there. It’s the only way they’ll be able to sustainably (in both senses) reduce energy bills and the ongoing shocks from global events. |  |
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| Good budget ? I thought so on 17:23 - Oct 29 with 57 views | flykickingbybgunn |
| Good budget ? I thought so on 18:53 - Oct 28 by BloomBlue |
A budget with nothing major in it equals a General Election in early Dec. |
Naa. Labour never pick a winter election. They will wait and if things seem suitable they will go in May. | | | |
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