http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17456712 listen/watch that
and then listen to this at the same time http://www.buzzfm.net/index.php
Unfortunately a lot of hot air on the A side (Conservatives), with not much actual content and boring as hell. I watched it.
On side B (Labour) they did a lot of shouting, as expected, to very little effect.
I don't think it's going to do much for this country at all. Resetting VAT to 17.5% would have been better than the increase in personal tax allowance IMO.
Smokers got a kicking, but not much other change from what I can see.
Child benefit is now taken away at 60k instead of 42k which is probably slightly better but they didn't fix the single earner vs household income issue with it.
I assume the raise in low tax threshold makes everyone better off, not sure it was necessary.
Raising personal tax allowance is a good thing because it does benefit everyone. Changing the VAT rate wouldn't achieve much to be honest, much like it made sod all difference changing it in the first place.
Beer going up 5p+ a pint is a massive kick in the teeth for the industry :thumbdown:
Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on March 21, 2012, 15:58:21 PM
Raising personal tax allowance is a good thing because it does benefit everyone. Changing the VAT rate wouldn't achieve much to be honest, much like it made sod all difference changing it in the first place.
It does not affect anyone already under the limit, so someone on 8K a year wouldn't get a penny extra. The same is true with unemployed/sick/pensioners. High VAT low income tax benefits those at higher levels more than lower as they buy less that they would pay VAT on.
Quote from: Serious on March 21, 2012, 17:49:42 PM
Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on March 21, 2012, 15:58:21 PM
Raising personal tax allowance is a good thing because it does benefit everyone. Changing the VAT rate wouldn't achieve much to be honest, much like it made sod all difference changing it in the first place.
It does not affect anyone already under the limit, so someone on 8K a year wouldn't get a penny extra. The same is true with unemployed/sick/pensioners. High VAT low income tax benefits those at higher levels more than lower as they buy less that they would pay VAT on.
I just wonder what it costs all of the UK companies to change the VAT rate, we need a load of people and re-printing of of countless materials and a load of other expenses..
It costs a hell of a lot of money changing the VAT over, businesses are the ones that need to be looked after and the average Joe needs to get used to cutting corners and spending less, the free-ride days are gone and it's time for some real conservatism.
More tax on beer though, after all these sly cuts on ABV too :disappointed:
The last real conservative PM was Heath, Thatcher certainly wasn't, neither was any of the muppets who followed her. Michael Heseltine could have been but was blocked by Thatcher and hated by others after her downfall.
It also costs business if they have to add an extra 2.5% to prices that are already high. Then some can't add the 2.5% easily, such as pound shops.
Quote from: addictweb on March 21, 2012, 14:32:38 PM
Child benefit is now taken away at 60k instead of 42k which is probably slightly better but they didn't fix the single earner vs household income issue with it.
Not sure they needed to 'fix' that issue. Like a single parent on 60k also pays 4k more in income tax and NI than a couple earning 30k each but people are worried about them not qualifying for a 'benefit' (which lets face it is essentially a tax deduction in the form of some cash back) of circa 1k.
Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on March 21, 2012, 21:14:59 PM
It costs a hell of a lot of money changing the VAT over, businesses are the ones that need to be looked after and the average Joe needs to get used to cutting corners and spending less, the free-ride days are gone and it's time for some real conservatism.
More tax on beer though, after all these sly cuts on ABV too :dis:
It's never the time for conservatism. Conservatism is at best an obsolete concept that has no place in the 21st century, at worst a potentially dangerous political philosophy that is damaging to society.
I just realised I put conservatism which wasn't the right term at all, at least not that broad. Fiscal conservatism. But you think LibLab is the way forward?
Labour was starting to sort out the problems, but the change in government dumped us back into the mess. Too much, too early. Osbourne is known for coming from a family of gamblers, he's gambling with your livelihood. Overall I don't think either 'far left labour' or 'large C Conservatism' are good for the country. The best options we have are more middle of the road.
QuoteIt will lead to 4.4m pensioners being an average £83 a year worse off than they would have been, the HMRC says.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17469252
Quotethe picture for the budget and the economy is still pretty bleak.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17465088
Quotethe Treasury's own figures claim to show that, while everyone is a loser, the people hit hardest by the Budget changes are Britain's very poorest and very richest.
But that does not include the 5% tax cut. That allegedly can't be factored in easily. Assuming it gives them a boost of just 2% then that would put them about even - the rich win.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17461047
Really what Osbourne was saying is 'if we give them a tax cut they will suddenly become more truthful and pay more'. Umm, not a chance in hell you muppet.
BTW: A person who smokes 20 cigs a day will be over £90 worse off in the next year.
Oh and cigar tax rises will be pretty much the same jump as cigarettes.
Some would argue that the Conservatives always have to pick up the pieces of Labour's failed mess...
Personally, I don't think any of the parties are any good. Biblical showers of sh*te, the lot of them, which is why I don't vote.
Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on March 22, 2012, 12:14:47 PM
Personally, I don't think any of the parties are any good. Biblical showers of sh*te, the lot of them, which is why I don't vote.
Likewise, and I dunno about anyone else I smoke so few cigars I year I just stock up when I go abroad.
Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on March 22, 2012, 10:15:40 AM
I just realised I put conservatism which wasn't the right term at all, at least not that broad. Fiscal conservatism. But you think LibLab is the way forward?
I actually completely agree with your post further down about all of the parties being a shower of sh*te. Revolution is the way forward, none of this better the devil you know you crap. :ptu:
Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on March 22, 2012, 12:14:47 PM
Some would argue that the Conservatives always have to pick up the pieces of Labour's failed mess...
Personally, I don't think any of the parties are any good. Biblical showers of sh*te, the lot of them, which is why I don't vote.
Except it works both ways. Labour have to fix the country after the Conservatives too. Then, by the time the public get an opportunity to decide to kick out an incumbent, there is either an incredible level of damage or they have fixed it. The other side of that is the incumbents are usually starting to cure the issue.
Even when Maggie got into power the Labour government were already starting to pull the country back together and get onto fixing the unions, they knew how, all they needed was the political impetus to do it. The strange thing is she managed to work it on a parlimentary basis, at voting it was great for the majority, a time of boom. In between the cabinet had to put the brakes on and the country went bust.
The then Tory leadership were starting to fix their mess but didn't have the time to do so before the next elections when Labour got back in. Unfortunately for them they had so much bad baggage by that point to carry that the only possible way to fix it was to rip the party back to basics. That's still not finished, it's something that takes a long time.
Last time it wasn't so much the Labour leadership to blame, they got caught in a world wide event. The Conservatives would have put their feet in the same huge hole. At the time Labour were using small c conservative tactics as much as right wing. Their mistake was they assumed that growth would continue seemingly forever, and they could therefore spend, spend, spend.
Had the US not gone down the pan first that might have continued, at least for another few years. The UK had it really good under New Labour until that point. Again, they were fixing the issues, the problem being they could only fix UK Ltd at a rate limited by all other countries. Had there been a quick fix option then they might have used it.
Again, as with the Tories, they had been gathering a lot of baggage, Iraq, Afghanistan and other drains on the money supply were not going to go away quickly. Much of the damage was psychological rather than physical, the reasons they invaded Iraq and the bad publicity spawned through it dragged them down.
Examining the way the country was going when the Conservatives/Liberals were elected into power as a coalition, had they just twiddled their thumbs the country would have sorted itself out anyway, same as was happening when Blair led his lot to victory.
Showers of sh*te might be accurate, but sh*te is still fertiliser of sorts.
Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on March 22, 2012, 12:14:47 PM
Some would argue that the Conservatives always have to pick up the pieces of Labour's failed mess...
Personally, I don't think any of the parties are any good. Biblical showers of sh*te, the lot of them, which is why I don't vote.
labour created this mess though. Only the banking sector glossed over the amount of money they blew - including our gold reserves.
its the usual cycle.. cons save money, people get fed up, labour comes in & blows it all, people think its good, then it goes tits up.
wash & repeat.
As for the budget - its been good for me. I dont smoke. Im a low earner & Im also going to pay less corporation tax.
Dont drive a company car anymore.
The budget works out pretty well for me too for the same reasons. At the end of the day someone has to get hit by it though, some people are fools and think the govt. can magic money up out of the Downing Street top hat (usually the same voters seeking all the handouts to pee their lives away on the dole and having a missus that is a baby factory).
Quote from: Eggtastico on March 23, 2012, 08:13:16 AM
labour created this mess though. Only the banking sector glossed over the amount of money they blew - including our gold reserves.
its the usual cycle.. cons save money, people get fed up, labour comes in & blows it all, people think its good, then it goes tits up.
wash & repeat.
They might have overspent but they were not the only ones involved in creating the mess, most of the blame can be pinned to the American Bush government and the European ones. The actual recession was caused by business indulging in stupidity and deceit.
As I said, if the Tories had been in power we would have had almost the same problems. Government spending might have been slightly lower but tax on the rich would have been the same.
Let's not pretend the govt. are so naive as to not know about it or that they themselves haven't been feeding from the trough, in bed with banks and big businesses. You are right though, regardless of who would be in power we would have this problem - because they are all a shower of sh*te.
Quote from: Serious on March 23, 2012, 10:06:25 AM
Quote from: Eggtastico on March 23, 2012, 08:13:16 AM
labour created this mess though. Only the banking sector glossed over the amount of money they blew - including our gold reserves.
its the usual cycle.. cons save money, people get fed up, labour comes in & blows it all, people think its good, then it goes tits up.
wash & repeat.
They might have overspent but they were not the only ones involved in creating the mess, most of the blame can be pinned to the American Bush government and the European ones. The actual recession was caused by business indulging in stupidity and deceit.
As I said, if the Tories had been in power we would have had almost the same problems. Government spending might have been slightly lower but tax on the rich would have been the same.
i agree it still would have happened, but there would be no way the housing market boom would have happened & people having so much personal debt.
People found it much easier to get credit under labour so a lot of things got priced hiked as people had the false pretense of having more disposable income
Quote from: Eggtastico on March 23, 2012, 19:33:24 PM
People found it much easier to get credit under labour so a lot of things got priced hiked as people had the false pretense of having more disposable income
I dont remember Labour giving the credit out, it was greedy banks who were unable to see that their overexposure to dodgy markets would eventually catch up with them when everyone realised the vast majority of Western growth was powered by unsustainable debt.
For that very same reason Labour overspent, they also didn't realise the debt bubble would burst as it did. Labour can be blamed for the overspending during their Government when they should have been saving for a rainy day, but that is exactly how politics works in a democracy. Why plan for the future when there is a high probability you wont be in power? Especially if the purse strings are being tightly controlled.
Career politicians exacerbate the problem even more because their sole purpose is to wield the power they so desire.
Quote from: Serious on March 23, 2012, 10:06:25 AM
They might have overspent but they were not the only ones involved in creating the mess, most of the blame can be pinned to the American Bush government and the European ones.
Actually you can place plenty of blame on Bill Clinton, African Americans and David Bowie...
Quote from: Eggtastico on March 23, 2012, 08:13:16 AM
Only the banking sector glossed over the amount of money they blew - including our gold reserves.
Come to think of it I wonder how much it was, and the difference would have been at most £9 billion. And you keep on trying that every time a political thread comes up.
During the Thatcher government they sold off over £50 billion in government owned assets, at a fraction of their real worth. BT was claimed to need investment money in order to modernise, then it was sold and it turned out that the money magically appeared inside the company.
Now the Tory a**hole in downing street is talking about selling off RBS shares to Abu Dhabi, at a 50% loss. So that could be another £7 billion plus loss from the CONservatives.
So, the Tories have wasted far more of your money than Labour.