Have your say on Budget Day
Posted on March 21, 2007 by Richard Beddard
Filed Under Ramblings |
What’s in store at 12.30 today? Stupified by too many of Gordon Brown’s ten previous speeches (and frankly a little agnostic on policy) I’ve turned to a couple of this blog’s erudite correspondents, Angela Frith and Steve Oakley, and selected bloggers of the World, or at least the UK, for their expectations. After the speech, I’ll update this page with reaction. Please add your comments below, after all it’s Budget Day! It’s a Budget for business, we’re told. It’s the financial set-piece of the year. But will it be an own-goal or a free-kick for Gordon Brown, in what may well be his last Budget speech?
Angela’s upbeat:
Frankly, I am interested in this budget - I think it will give a strong clue to exactly what kind of PM Gordon Brown will make, and public reaction will influence his party’s view on his prospective leadership.
How reckless will he be, what kind of statement will he make? Will he go all out to alienate the middle classes, as expected? That’s an awful lot of Labour voters, who Tony Blair has spent ten years getting on side.
Masochists at the Adam Smith Institute want pain, or to be more accurate, they think it’s coming sooner or later, so better that it’s sooner:
Will there be pain in the Budget due on Wednesday? There should be, in that Government spending, so profligate for 6 years, has to be brought to heel. There should be spending cuts combined with public sector job losses.
But Dr Madsen Pirie thinks that the Chancellor will borrow again to plug the public finances and, having moved on to No 10 in the summer, leave it to somebody else to clear up the mess.
Steve is worrying about bandwagons:
What is increasingly worrying, from both parties, is the choice to leap on bandwagons (e.g. air traveler tax) rather than substance. Many frequent fliers, such as myself, travel on business, in my case earning literally £bns for the country (not alone of course, I have several colleagues!).
They can claim the cost as a legitimate expense and, given precedents such as the carousel VAT frauds, I suspect that this tax increase will simply become a drain on the Treasury whilst hitting hardest those who can least afford it, the genuine cheap flier who has only recently been liberated by Ryanair. Another stupid own goal by the egomaniacs of the Palace of Westminster!
If the politicians really wanted to reduce carbon emissions, gas burning/fossil fuel burning power stations would be a place to start, with the tax proceeds used to finally crack fusion power and alternative renewable energy sources.
Basically, I expect Brown to follow his usual “smoke and mirrors” routine; seeming to give new money to good causes whilst actually simply recycling money already committed…
And finally, at the end of the day, the biggest monument to political egos going, the London Olympics, will have to be paid for. My guess at the final bill? £12billion if we are lucky - for a fortnight of “sport” whilst millions starve and die of preventable disease in the third world? Now that, and I suspect the budget, are the truly sad things I expect from Wednesday.
Update - More from Angela:
I agree with Steve too. I think that the politicians are completely missing the point on green issues. They really don’t think the electorate are sophisticated enough to see the difference between an excuse for revenue raising and a genuine committment to resolving the long term problems of climate change and depletion of energy resources.
It almost looks as if the general public is better informed on the issues than politicians, who are apparently too busy to watch television or learn to use a computer.
On the wider-web it’s the greens that are most agitated:
- Treehugger reveals Labour’s Green Budget
- Scorched Earth says if the chancellor’s past efforts are anything to go by this budget’s going to be “very unimaginative and rather useless.”
Meanwhile AccountingWeb has a worthy list of predictions, and the Politics Blog rounds up what the columnists have to say. But what do you say?
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2 Responses to “Have your say on Budget Day”
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Why does Gordon Brown think it’s acceptable to hit small businesses by using them to fund the decrease in corporation tax for big businesses. We’ve been hit enough, for example, with the previous increases with the increases in NI contributions. All such things put small business owners off employing addditional staff. Gordon should be encouraging and rewarding those that choose to take the risk of running their own business, not punishing them.
budget indicates that Mrs.H. will be an even worse P.M. that the posturing poltroon that we have endured for the past ten years.