Budget 2025

MK62

Grumpy_chap said:

michaels said:

The reality is the triple lock is no more as once the state pension is taxed, pensioners will only get 80% of any increase so the state pension will no longer keep up with inflation but will fall in real terms.  

Not really.
The Triple Lock sees the SP increase by 4.8% for the coming year.
The National Living Wage will increase by 4.1%.
It is difficult to see why the SP should be protected against income tax while the worker on NLW is not.  The SP is still increasing by more than the NLW.


The real problem with the press at the moment is the seemingly collective decision to target the individual and hound a change of personnel.  It would be far more important, IMO, to be commenting on and challenging the actual policies and driving clarifications on matters such as how the "no tax for SP" will actually work.

In all the talk about the triple lock, one fact seemingly overlooked is that it's been cheaper than the so called "double lock" it replaced.......George Osbourne changed the inflation measure used from RPI to CPI when he introduced the triple lock in 2011 (from 2003-2011, the then government pledged to increase state pension by the higher of RPI or 2.5%......although the 2.5% minimum was only used once AFAICT)
If the triple lock had never existed, and the then in use "double lock" had been used since 2011 instead, the Basic State pension would be c.£9956 from April 2026, as opposed to the triple locked £9616, and New State pension would be c.£12974 as opposed to the triple locked £12547 (NSP was introduced in 2016).
That said, I'm sure if that had been the case, it would now be said that the double lock was unsustainable too......

PS......since it's introduction in April 2016, the NLW has increased from 7.20ph to £12.71ph in April 2026.....76.5%. For comparison, had the new state pension been increased by a similar percentage, it would be £14286 in 2026. I'm in no way against increases in the NLW btw, but imho you you have to look at the bigger picture and put it all into perspective, rather than just looking at a single year in isolation.

ClashCityRocker1

Alexland said:

Cobbler_tone said:

 I have been impressed with how fair the media have been on reporting this budget 

That is the funniest thing I've read today. 

Alexland

ClashCityRocker1 said:

That is the funniest thing I've read today. 

You seem to have trimmed my sentence and missed the part about the need to hold people to account for their actions which is of course important whatever your views.

Bobziz

Alexland said:

ClashCityRocker1 said:

That is the funniest thing I've read today. 

You seem to have trimmed my sentence and missed the part about the need to hold people to account for their actions which is of course important whatever your views.

But surely 'fair' would include being treated in the same way as others in similar positions have been treated ? I agree that all should be robustly challenged, but if that had consistently been the case over the last 20 years then we wouldn't be dealing with many of the challenges that we currently face. 

Cobbler_tone

Bobziz said:

Alexland said:

ClashCityRocker1 said:

That is the funniest thing I've read today. 

You seem to have trimmed my sentence and missed the part about the need to hold people to account for their actions which is of course important whatever your views.

But surely 'fair' would include being treated in the same way as others in similar positions have been treated ? I agree that all should be robustly challenged, but if that had consistently been the case over the last 20 years then we wouldn't be dealing with many of the challenges that we currently face. 

TBF I think they all get battered equally. Truss and KK got some ‘banter’. I hope you’re not suggesting RR is getting rough treatment?!

Bobziz

I think she's getting rough treatment but I'm not so sure all others have been treated the same way. Truss and KK had to get a battering, the markets gave the media no choice. I can't recall Hunt getting battered for reducing N.I, perhaps I missed it 🤔 Did Sunak get battered for eat out to help out or the millions wasted on sub standard PPE, maybe he did. It would be useful if some of the criticism was constructive, lots of arm chair chancellors out there and I'm far from convinced that when this one goes that she'll be replaced by this or future governments by anyone much better. 

Alexland

Bobziz said:

But surely 'fair' would include being treated in the same way as others in similar positions have been treated ? I agree that all should be robustly challenged, but if that had consistently been the case over the last 20 years then we wouldn't be dealing with many of the challenges that we currently face. 

I totally agree but I don't think we have ever had a budget where the government have made such an obvious public mess of the situation. When I cast my mind back to the 'Cheerios' press briefing then it genuinely left me saddened that the fiscal position was even worse than I expected. I was slightly doubting my judgement in moving so much into IL gilts. It's probably had a real economic impact on some people's spending, investment and drawdown decisions.

I also think we are reaching a point of activism where the people feel the impact of the high tax burden is already unbearable so any further increases require an extremely good justification which magnifies the reaction to being mislead. If any party had done this now the media reaction would have probably been the same unanimous condemnation.