My blog is unlikely to make much impact in the vast number of outpourings that result after Mr Darling’s budget presentation today… however I can’t resist.
£175 Billion of debt… in one year. OMG.
£606 Billion over 4 years… Gasp.
£15 Billion to be made in efficiency savings? Haven’t these guys ever seen ‘Yes Minister‘ ?
50% tax rate for those earning over £150,000. Well, that won’t bother me much (if only), but I’m surprised to hear that that covers a mere 1% of the UK population, I would have expected it to be higher than that. If so, this tax rise makes political capital for the beleagueared labour party, but is unlikely to rake in that much cash. Also, the super rich tend to be rather good at squirrelling money away from the tax man.
2% rise in fuel costs – great. 
2% rise in alcohol duty – There goes my sherry and G&T.
2% rise in tobacco – don’t smoke, not bothered.
Why can’t we kill of the pointless Government projects like the National ID Card – £6Billion saved. How about Trident at £2B/year. How about wars in other countries at £1B/year? The mind boggles.
Interesting to note that most of the tax changes come into operation in 2011, which is when the next election is scheduled… Hmmmm.
I have to say I did enjoy Mr. Cameron’s broadside at Darling and Brown, with his accusations of a ‘decade of debt’ and so on. The last bit is worth quoting…
They sit there running out of money, running out of moral authority, running out of time and you have to ask yourself, what is the point of another 14 months of this Government of the living dead.
‘If they don’t have the courage to deal with the debt and take the difficult decisions, why don’t they make way for the team that can.’
Whether the Tories will be any better is difficult to tell, so lets see what they will be suggesting as alternatives…
The good thing for opposition parties (of whatever colour) is they don’t have to have any positive suggestions. They can just throw rocks at the government (whichever one it might be) and look smug. By successfully trashing government policy the electorate feels the opposition is a credible alternative, and overlloks the fact that it probably isn’t.
It’s been going on for years…
Yep, easy to be a critic isn’t it! Being constructive is much tougher!