The Budget

[threegee]

Pretty good budget for the economy and the low-paid. Reduction in fuel duty, scrapping of the escalator, and the fuel stabiliser completely wrong footed Red Ed, who could only drone on about the trimming in the previously fictitious growth forecasts as if they'd had some sort of root in reality.

Pumping cash into R&D through the tax system is a really positive step. Not just agreeing to cream off less, but a positive contribution out of tax revenues.

Interesting to see the shots of a pensive Darling, obviously wishing he'd had the freedom of action to do the same sort of things.

[Malcolm Robinson]

I agree about Darling I don't think he was ever given the freedom he wanted or even should have had!

Seems a half decent budget certainly aimed at attracting business start-ups, let's hope there is somebody somewhere pushing our region to get enterprise status! Nice to see a few little risks being taken which might produce dividends.

It is certainly refocusing the economy.

[Malcolm Robinson]

GGG,

In the spirit of this topic title and your sub title…….'look mum no stealth taxes' I think there is one section which does require further consideration.

''In the last Budget, I announced that from next month welfare payments and public service pensions would be up-rated in line with the Consumer Prices Index. I said at the time we should also consider up-rating the tax system in the same way. So from April 2012, the default indexation assumption for direct taxes will move to CPI.''

So these benefits will be upped in consideration of inflation as measured by CPI.

''As announced by my predecessor, tobacco duty rates will increase by 2 per cent above inflation…..Rates of vehicle excise duty will increase by inflation only''

These tax rises will be indexed to inflation as measured by RPI.

The difference is 1.1% at the moment with tax rises 'outperforming' any tax reductions or welfare payments! Playing both sides against the middle is something we have become used to with all Chancellors and it is somewhat disingenuous to hear Gideon claim he is any different.

[Dr Pit]

Pretty good budget for the economy and the low-paid. Reduction in fuel duty, scrapping of the escalator, and the fuel stabiliser completely wrong footed Red Ed, who could only drone on about the trimming in the previously fictitious growth forecasts as if they'd had some sort of root in reality.

Pumping cash into R&D through the tax system is a really positive step. Not just agreeing to cream off less, but a positive contribution out of tax revenues.

Interesting to see the shots of a pensive Darling, obviously wishing he'd had the freedom of action to do the same sort of things.

So kind of them to introduce the fuel stabiliser now that prices have hit an all time high, hope we can keep them

so high come what may. A real help to the low paid. Remember if its on diesel its on everything due to transport costs.

[Merlin]

3g reading some of your posts reminds me of reading a newspaper article of a football match I went to see! I ask myself WTF were they at the same game as me? Your Tory blue tinted glasses seem to be on over drive I think a visit to Spec savers is in order because you saw and read about a different budget than the one I saw.

[threegee]

3g reading some of your posts reminds me of reading a newspaper article of a football match I went to see! I ask myself WTF were they at the same game as me? Your Tory blue tinted glasses seem to be on over drive I think a visit to Spec savers is in order because you saw and read about a different budget than the one I saw.

I'm NOT a Tory! I simply use my eyes, my brain, and my long experience. Every time this country has had an era of sustainable prosperity it has been under a Tory government. Every time we've had a Sterling crisis, and lost control of our economy it has been under a Labour one. Economists warned where the Brown/Blair duo were going, and it has come about.

I don't agree with Tory !*!@#-footing around; I certainly don't agree with Clegg and his meaningless "fairness" agenda. I'm MUCH more aligned with the sound ideas of UKIP. But, it's a case of the art of the possible.

I'm anti-Labour because I've seen what Labour's "the World owes us a living; it's all the fault of those capitalists" ideas have done for our town. That's not to say there weren't some fine people in the early Labour party people - Clement Attlee for one - but they are people of a bye-gone age. Today Labour is the equivalent of the US Democratic Party - the lawyer's party. People who chase ambulances and don't produce anything. People who are in it solely for building their own careers. And, people who have no belief system or new ideas. That's totally foreign to the hard working people of our area, the people who produced the real wealth that our country is built on. Yet, they continue to be duped by the rhetoric and the meaningless promises. Red Ed even had the barefaced cheek to turn up at yesterday's rally knowing full well that what he'd do is near exactly the same as what the people were protesting about. Oh yes, he'd take longer to do it, and try to sugar-coat the bad medicine, but in the process we'd all end up even worse off, and the government would have even less flexibility due to the increased debt burden. Believe me what the current lot is doing is the very minimum to stave off yet another currency crisis.

If you still don't agree with me then tell me how you'd manage the economy to get us out of this mess, and I (and others) will then tell you why it won't work. I'm also happy to tell you how to make this country one of the most prosperous in the world again! You won't like those measures, and neither will the electorate. So no political party is going to go near them - simply !*!@#-foot around the edges of them like the Tories and the Lib Dems. And... at this point, we are back to the art of the possible.

[Merlin]

3G I agree with what you say, these people who supposedly try to run our country, no-matter which party they throw their allegiances to, are one and the same! They are concerned with nobody but themselves. Labour has lost it's way since the seventies and are now Tories in disguise, the Liberals (or whatever they call themselves) lost their way in the twenties, and have sold their souls to the Tories to grasp a bit power. A new party is needed, made up of people who have a bit of nous as to what this country is ACTUALLY like and the state it is in, not public school boys who have never wanted for anything in their short sad lives. I hate to say this, and it really galls me as anyone who knows me will understand, but, Ian Lavery MP had an idea of a Peoples Party a while back and was trying to set it up, until he sold his soul to greed, no surprise there! (sorry had to get that in) To me he went over the top with what he said and tried to do, but the thought was there. Maybe some of us could pick up the mantle and proceed where he left off, but get it right! Lets get one thing straight here I'm not on about Communism!

Oh! an 3G ye bite good!

[Malcolm Robinson]

Some budget salient points I ripped off another site I use:

Income Tax

The starting point is that everyone in the UK is entitled to a "Personal Allowance”, which represents the amount you are allowed to earn before you start paying tax. The current Government has committed to increasing this to £10,000 during the current parliament, taking hundreds of thousands of people out of the tax system altogether which is clearly good news. However, to pay for this, many more hard working families will find that they are being pushed into the higher rate tax band. The changes that have been made over the last 2 Budgets are as follows:

2010/2011 2011/2012 2011/2012

Personal Allowance

£6,475 £7,475 £8,105

Basic Rate Band (20%)

£0-£37,400 £0-£35,000 £0-34,370

Higher Rate Band (40%)

£37,401-£150,000 £35,001-£150,000 £34,371-£150,000

Additional Rate (50%)

Over £150,000 Over £150,000 Over £150,00

You can see from this table that, whilst the Personal Allowance has increased each year, the Basic Rate Band has reduced each year. This means that in 2011/12 as many as 750,000 more people will pay Higher Rate Tax than in 2010/2011.

Duty

The cut in Fuel Duty by 1% is actually much more generous than you might believe. Fuel Duty was originally set to increase by 1%, plus an inflation adjustment. The cut in real terms therefore is more like 5% (which is good news).

However, one of the stings in the tail of Fuel Duty is that you actually pay VAT on Fuel Duty (yes, you pay tax on a tax!). VAT rose to 20% from January, so we have all been necessarily paying more for fuel.

The Duty on Alcohol increased as expected, but was increased even further for those who enjoy higher strength beers. A 500ml can of beer with an alcohol content of more than 7.5% will cost an additional 25 pence.

Smokers were hit harder, with economy cigarettes costing an extra 50 pence a packet and premium cigarettes 33 pence more.

Enterprise Investment Schemes (EIS)

The relief given for investments in EIS qualifying companies will increase to 30% from 6th April and there is a relaxation on the types and sizes of companies that can qualify for this relief. This is excellent news for smaller companies who have been struggling to raise funds ever since the banking crisis. It is also great news for investors who can now effectively get up to 93% of their investment in an EIS company effectively underwritten by HMRC (a combination of 30% Income Tax Relief, 28% Capital Gains Tax Deferral Relief and 35% Loss Relief).

More details will continue to emerge over the coming weeks about the detail behind the Budget and no doubt more planning options and issues will be uncovered as the law of unintended consequences always applies to tax changes!

[Malcolm Robinson]

3G I agree with what you say, these people who supposedly try to run our country, no-matter which party they throw their allegiances to, are one and the same! They are concerned with nobody but themselves. Labour has lost it's way since the seventies and are now Tories in disguise, the Liberals (or whatever they call themselves) lost their way in the twenties, and have sold their souls to the Tories to grasp a bit power. A new party is needed, made up of people who have a bit of nous as to what this country is ACTUALLY like and the state it is in, not public school boys who have never wanted for anything in their short sad lives. I hate to say this, and it really galls me as anyone who knows me will understand, but, Ian Lavery MP had an idea of a Peoples Party a while back and was trying to set it up, until he sold his soul to greed, no surprise there! (sorry had to get that in) To me he went over the top with what he said and tried to do, but the thought was there. Maybe some of us could pick up the mantle and proceed where he left off, but get it right! Lets get one thing straight here I'm not on about Communism!

Oh! an 3G ye bite good!

Merlin,

Pleased somebody else is looking at this stuff and seeing a problem! Not sure I agree with your prognosis that Labour lost its way since the 70's and maybe you should look at our esteemed MP's personal situation when he suggested his People's Party idea.

But that's history now and we need something constructive to move forward with.

Leaving aside national governance for a minute if we look at what has happened locally for that last umpteen years, and try to see why Bedlington has fared so badly, I think it's down to Party Politics. People are elected, supposedly to represent us, but only if they wear the right coloured tie! Once they are 'in power' 99% of the time they don't even have free will in the way policy is worked through and instead a select group dictate the way that party's membership has to vote. That's a bad way to run anything and means decisions are based on political expediency instead of merit.

Now there are plenty of political animals on this board can anyone of them please explain to me what the party structure has to do with getting a pot hole filled in on the road outside our houses or getting Mrs Jones's gutters fixed? Until someone can, I fail to see the relevance of the party structure certainly up to County Council level. Just because an idea comes from one side doesn't make it correct in the same way that an idea coming from a different side doesn't make it wrong. Relying on a party structure in this way only means that many times perfectly viable ideas and practices are ignored in favour of ones based on political dogma.

To illustrate that with a local example, making Ashington the commercial heart of Wansbeck was a mistake, Bedlington could have fulfilled that role and had many more natural assets to exploit and build on. That politically biased decision taken at the formation of WDC side-lined Bedlington into also ran status and meant for all the investment and time put into it, Ashington could never fulfil that role sustainably.

I will concede there could be a role for political parties in national governance, however even then we see political leaders who have no relevance to the vast bulk of the population. Again I have a question, if our MPs are only in Westminster to represent our views when was the last time any of them asked what we thought on any given subject? Without a regular conduit how on earth can any of them stand up and say they represent their electorates.

[Merlin]

Don't worry Malcolm I was not advocating his peoples party, only the idea in principal.

I have said on here many times that the people in power are so far detached from the real world that they don't have a clue about the people in this country. they do only what is good for themselves. It has been many years since a political party REPRESENTED it's voters from the street in the halls of power. They forget their roots and what they once stood for, and, if what you say is correct, why have we got three main parties to vote for when they all govern the same?

Here's a one for you. In one country we have students and the people protesting against the people in power, they are called thugs and vandals.

In another we have the same thing students and the people protesting against the people in power, but there they are acclaimed for wanting to be free from dictatorship, for wanting a better way of life and for wanting freedom of speech.

Where are we talking about is it Libya first or Britain or the other way round? :dribble:

[Malcolm Robinson]

Merlin,

The old moral conundrum, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. It all depends where you are standing when you make the call.

As for the morphing of political parties, the thing is there are a clear set of 'issues' to be resolved and the difference is supposed to be in the choice of ways and means used to tackle them. The 'issues' don't change they are fixed and there are essentially only a very limited set of tools which can be used in their resolution, given all the constraints hardly surprising the major parties are now reduced to arguing over semantics! In reality it makes the political party structure all the more irrelevant.