The Budget is on Wednesday.
As usual, I will be on Radio 2 at about 13.30 on that day, speaking to Jeremy Vine as the Chancellor sits down. That means I have already begun to think about what Jeremy Hunt might say. Here are some thoughts. You can vote as many times as you like. Comments or additions are very welcome:
What will the Chancellor unveil in the Budget?
- A claim that there is no room for any significant public sector pay rises (14%, 200 Votes)
- A claim that austerity is still needed (13%, 191 Votes)
- A claim that the government's budget will balance within five years (11%, 158 Votes)
- No increase in tax allowances despite inflation, increasing taxes as a result (11%, 156 Votes)
- An expansion of freeports (8%, 117 Votes)
- New pension allowances for the best off (8%, 116 Votes)
- Increased tax incentives for saving to make the wealthy wealthier (8%, 110 Votes)
- New tax incentives for investment by companies (7%, 102 Votes)
- All those and more (6%, 83 Votes)
- A surprise cut in the corporation tax increase planned for March (6%, 79 Votes)
- A reduction in inheritance tax (3%, 44 Votes)
- I don't know but show me the answers anyway (3%, 44 Votes)
- A reduction in the VAT registration threshold to bring more businesses into the scope of that tax (2%, 35 Votes)
Total Voters: 315
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The overall theme will use the outdated household budget meme, and that taxes pay for spending. This went out the window when Nixon took the USA off the Bretton Woods Gold Standard in 1971. Politicians and many economists are still in the past.
Agreed
Popular drama needs to change to help educate people. For example, the early 2000’s series Spooks, about a section D within MI5, has had several storylines where the Government trotted out the line that they had no money – in one story to bail out a bank, and in another to meet the interest payment on the national debt, and that therefore the UK would be bankrupt.
So the idea that the Government has no money is embedded into entertainment that some people will then take as factual. Of course the script writers are not likely to understand any different themselves.
Rosie Holt from 2022 but still spot on…
MP explains how mini-budget & trickle down economics is like “watering a garden. Selectively”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axaZBsz5NyU
I expect the same old same old.
There will probably be some giveaways. For example, it has been widely reported that Hunt intends to end the ‘prepayment premium’ for those on pay as you go meters. This will apparently save them a whopping £45 a year. While it is welcome, because prepayment meters are often used by those with little money to begin with, there is one problem with it. There is no mention of standing charges. Standing charges are higher for prepayment customers and when the energy companies are restricted on what they can charge on the price of energy, they usually put the increase on the standing charge. The standing charge has become an energy poll tax, but a poll tax with a difference, the poorer you are the more you pay. And let’s not forget that the Tories put the debts of the private energy companies that went bust on the energy standing charges that the rest of us pay.
It is also likely that they will cancel a planned £500 hike in average energy bills which was due to come into force next month. For the average household that means bills could stay at around £2,500, instead of going up to £3,000. Big deal. For most people energy support will end as from next month. For example, the £400 payment that everyone got last year ends. From the 1st April energy support will be means tested and you will have to apply for it.
So, a lot of people will find their energy bills are going to increase massively.
I expect that some crumbs of comfort will come from Hunt, but austerity will continue. I think it is clear that the Tories will play the usual game of holding back until an election year when the budget will be full of bribes. Perhaps an income tax cut for basic rate payers next year, with the usual “will Labour honour it” if elected.
Whatever happens this week, austerity will continue with the big bribes coming in the election year. Tory gameplan 101.
Thanks
I have to listen to this for work purposes (public sector accountant) and I dread it every year – Budget Bingo is one of the games I play to keep myself entertained/sane.
If I may add in a few other potentials: blaming the 2008 Financial Crash on Labour, a relatively small budget introduced purely for the purposes of a zinger and a 3-word phrase/slogan that doesn’t make sense really (a la ‘grow the pie’).
🙂
It is always wise to ignore the rhetorical tricks and look at the Red Book to see where and how much (the Treasury mandarins think) money is actually being raised or spent.
Does what they have to say deserve to be called a budget?
‘Budget’ implies something adequate to spend.
The abuse of language by the Tory party knows no bounds.
And of course, it should not be called a “budget”, that does not need costing or budgeting.
The government just gave £5bn to Ukraine, we don’t need to ask where the money “will be found”.