Budget in two weeks time?

drc

I think Labour know they have no hope of getting in next year and will pass the mantle to the Tories. Not before performing a scorched earth policy just to spite the Tories, this thoroughly selfish and self-serving lot!. Of course people will be very quick to forget that it was the Labour pigs that got us into this mess even though the Tories will have to make the difficult decisions. The Tories won't be much better though...

ukcarper

What makes you think the tories will be any better you might pay a bit less tax but if you need to go into hospital be prepared to wait a least a year. When the credit crunch hit they went on about labour not saving for a rainy day before they were going to match labours spending. They think were just as daft as labour does.

Guy_Montag

Generali wrote: »

So it'll cost an extra £100 per family per month for the next 5 years just to drag the budget into balance by 2015/16. Plus the extra interest from all this borrowing.

Government spending is going to have to fall. I can't see any other possible outcome. I don't think many people can afford to knock £50/week off their household spending without big cuts in lifestyle. Someone on the median male wage of £400/week net would lose 1/8th of their income!

I reckon it's worth it - get the debt cleared as quickly as possible.

Then make f'king sure we don't get into the position again. If that means that the city is no longer the premier financial centre, so be it - we could do something productive as a country rather than taking a slice of other people's work.

So plenty of little banks; get rid of tripartite regulation (wasn't my fault gov, they other boys were supposed to be watching it); proper regulation & make those responsible accountable.

geoffky

I will be lying on a beach when it is due out so i have a few weeks where it will be bliss and not knowing i will have to pay 60% tax on my savings...

Generali

Guy_Montag wrote: »

I reckon it's worth it - get the debt cleared as quickly as possible.

Then make f'king sure we don't get into the position again. If that means that the city is no longer the premier financial centre, so be it - we could do something productive as a country rather than taking a slice of other people's work.

So plenty of little banks; get rid of tripartite regulation (wasn't my fault gov, they other boys were supposed to be watching it); proper regulation & make those responsible accountable.

The trouble is, if it's not banks then it's something else - look at what happened in the 1970s, the last time the UK ran out of money. If you run perpetual deficits (as Labour and Tory have done since the 1960s) then when things get really bad you've got no contingency.

Generally speaking, as a bare minimum the UK should have no net debt normally as right now, I can't see where the money to finance all these huge deficits is going to come from. Saudi and China (the obvious candidates) are running deficits so they're out.

Thrugelmir

Generali wrote: »

So it'll cost an extra £100 per family per month for the next 5 years just to drag the budget into balance by 2015/16. Plus the extra interest from all this borrowing.

Government spending is going to have to fall. I can't see any other possible outcome. I don't think many people can afford to knock £50/week off their household spending without big cuts in lifestyle. Someone on the median male wage of £400/week net would lose 1/8th of their income!

and that's before higher interest rates return as well.

The obvious effect of this will be a further fall in the property market. It's hard to see where the reduction in outgoings will come from. Particularly as food prices are still increasing rapidly.

epz_2

I still dont get why people are so compilcit in the idea the public spending needs to be so high.

why not just scrap id cards and new nukes, tell teachers they need to deal with bigger class sizes (sack some and assistants) and that their performance will be rated against international measures, also dump the dumb !!! labour idea of the nhs in favor of something that works.

couple that with a right to work (aka benifits for a days work if you cant find a job) and it would solve a lot of probs, instead we will get massive inflation shortly followed by high interest rates and a transfer of weath to the rich.

"vote labour, its in our interests to make you poorer"

Rochdale_Pioneers

I don't buy half of whats being said above. We're not Ireland, we don't need to slash public spending and bang up taxes to pay off the debt tomorrow. The deficit needs to come down, and it will do as we recover - didn't we manage to pay 15% of debt off prior to 2002?

And as has been pointed out there are things that can be scrapped - I expect ID cards to go. Trident doesn't need cash spending on it for years. How much cash does that save?

Anyway, its not as if it will be a choice of austerity under Labour vs good times under the Tories. Its do you want an axe taken to public services under the Tories or not?

JasonLVC

I'm not sure that the budget has been delayed again, it was supposed to be in March 2009 but now moved to April (post G20) - but correct me if I'm wrong on that.

For anyone who didn't hear Gordon Brown's interview with Jeremy Vine on BBC 2 yesterday afternoon, suggest you find the podcast and listen to it. He said, with TRUE conviction, that his policies had seen food prices come down, that petrol prices had gone down and that mortgages had gone down.

Not even the staunchest Brown fan can agree with him on this. Food prices are going UP, petrol is going UP (and going higher due to the fuel duty in April) - but I'll agree mortgages are coming down...for some people. Only Monday a charity was banging on about people not being able to buy food for their kids and how pensioners are having to reuse teabags and eat toast.

When asked about the VAT cut being a failure, he felt it was a success and that it put £5 a week in each persons pocket - despite several other fiscal surveys (albeit one of those survey's being a Tory one, granted) saying the opposite...not to mention savvy MSE'rs who've already noticed that following the drop in December, prices have kept back up to the old prices again.

Oh and he mentioned the word "global" so many times in one sentence, I thought I'd tuned into "Global FM" and was listening to a trailer.

I'm not posting to bash Brown, I am genuinely concerned now that the PM hasn't got a clue about the real pain being caused to vast swathes of the UK and to come out and state everything is cheaper now is just rubbish. I tried to buy a car last month and all the dealers were increasing prices!.

whathavewedone

Yes I listened to that interview yesterday. Utterly cringeworthy and the last caller who rang to say that she wanted to thank him for being Prime Minister because he obviously cared so much about the poor and needy was so obviously a fix. Might have been Islandannie actually, she sounded a bit emotional.

I was surprised that so many anti Brown callers got put through before the last one though. Maybe they lied to the researchers.