Wednesday 24 March 2010

So When's The Real Budget?

From what I've read so far, 'trivial tinkering' is about as generous a term I could think of to describe what is, beyond all question, the most inept and irresponsible response to Britain's debt crisis that Labour could have managed, desperate as they are not to confront the consequences of Gordon Brown's economic car crash before the general election. We got the usual cowardly hammering of harmless drinkers and smokers, the usual mindless fuel duty increases (staggered, as if that matters during a devaluation) and the usual (from Labour, especially under Brown, but now under Darling) stealth tax increases, which are being deciphered from the small print by various sifters and sleuth bloggers as we speak.

The giveaways were pathetic too. Raising the stamp duty threshold to encourage first time buyers will have no such effect. It is, when put into perspective, a tiny tax break. Not being able to get a mortgage on decent terms, or a mortgage that any first time buyer with half a brain will know would become an unaffordable millstone with the first interest rate hike are the real problems. So, no help there. As for the attempt to woo the grey vote once more, well, it's nice for my folks to look forward to a winter fuel allowance again. But now that the worst of this winter is just about over, I can't see them being overly impressed with this straightforward bribe. They'll still have to stump up £2000+ a year for gas and electricity, a constant struggle for pensioners - who are hardly excessive users. See? Pathetic. And where were the cuts? Inadequate and slipped in under the radar.

In reality, therefore, this was a white noise budget with no clear purpose and no clear goal. I note with great pleasure that Cameron was especially thorough in his demolition of it, of Labour's latest ruin of Britain and of the man responsible for it all, James Gordon Brown. Five more years of this? You need your head examined if you seriously want that.

But if you really are as determined as I am to see the end of Brown and his ultra-corrupt government, but can't vote for Cameron for whatever petty reason, then just remember: If you do that then you will split the vote and you will get five more years of Brown. And you'll only have yourself to blame. Putting prejudice before country is as sure a way of letting these useless wreckers back in by default as actually voting for them.

I would have thought this burnt-out budget of a burnt-out government would have provided reason enough to wake up, smell the coffee, vote Tory and finally get them out.

Then, fifty days after that happy day, we'll have the real budget. You know, a Conservative budget that will begin the process of reversing the catastrophic damage long years of a Labour government has caused to the United Kingdom. Again.

2 comments:

  1. Believe me, the stamp duty thing will run and run. It is complex as hell.

    "A Treasury spokesman said that first-time buyers would have to confirm this was their first property at the time of purchase and checks would be carried out."

    By whom, I wonder?

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  2. Great points.

    I just can't believe that people will believe such a tiny token could help them, given the context. But believe it they will, sadly - at least some of them.

    Not enough, though, I sincerely hope.

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Any thoughts?