There we have it. I will post my speech today in the House for tomorrow morning when it is available. Happy to read your thoughts.
I am glad they accepted advice that they need to rescue public services from the Ā£30 bn hit to productivity I identified sometime ago on this site. The Chancellor said he would tackle Ā£20bn of this hit. I will comment in a later post on the chosen methods and timetable.
There is an overall tax cut, mainly in the form of the NI reductions.
There are also a series of increased tax measuresĀ including a new vape tax, increased tobacco duty, increased air passenger duty, higher tax on holiday lets and an extension of Windfall oil and gas tax. I did not propose any tax increases and am concerned about the holiday lets one inĀ particular.
March 6, 2024
Should have increased the personal allowance. As a pensioner I have just been informed by Wokingham council that my April Pension increase has been wiped out by their council tax increase to cover their incessant waste.
The cost of governance is swallowing us minnows up. I wonder if it is worth it and I doubt it is value for money.
March 7, 2024
As Dom Cummings has tweeted “There is no plan, there’s no desire to fight, No10 is tumbleweed as officials. &spads plan their next jobs”
March 7, 2024
I listened to your contribution to the budget debate, and the one from the Rt Hon member for the 18th Century.
Both of you should be in the cabinet.
The argument between cutting NI or Income tax is an interesting one. Obviously as we are over retirement age, my wife and I don’t benefit. It would have been much better to have restored the value of income tax allowances because for the second year, I will be paying income tax at 40%.
The cost of living is now so much higher that we can no longer afford to maintain our living standards using savings. I will have to take more money out of my SIPP thus the 40% tax rate applies.
Only four years ago, our income from BTL and careful use of savings meant that we didn’t need to touch our state or private pensions at all. Despite putting up rents, higher interest rates put paid to that ! We are now Ā£50,000 a year net worse off than in 2020.
March 7, 2024
“The falcon cannot hear the falconer,
Things fall apart;the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”
WB Yeats,The second Coming
March 7, 2024
I think it’s been decided that it’s Labour’s turn to overturn many things the Tories couldn’t get away with.
March 7, 2024
BW
Indeed, the triple lock was established to protect pensioners from inflation, they got a rise based on the inflation rate at the time, (although not the year before) now that rise, and any future ones, will be taxed at 20%.
“give with one hand, take with the other ” (my comment in yesterday’s posting, before Starmer used it)
Fiscal drag is bringing in more tax than Hunt is giving back.
A nothing for anyone Budget really, indeed most will pay more tax, and anyone who is earning less than Ā£25,000 per year will be worse off, meaning millions of people now worse off as a result of yesterday.
If Hunt really wants to remove National Insurance, then just say so, but then he will need that income from somewhere else.
I await the real election Budget later in the year !
March 8, 2024
can only work when the ‘basket of goods’ is compared on what they determine to be a typical domestic set of purchases. The inflation rate might be reasonable for a typical national average income.
Most would agree that annual costs in Ā£s not percentages, for pensioners have increased a lot more than the state pension increase in Ā£s.
March 6, 2024
Indeed other tax increases too the VAT threshold gets a tiny increase but less than inflation, back door stamp duty increases and the many frozen thresholds (IHT still 325k has been for 15+ years now worth circa Ā£200k), council tax up hugely and still the mad delusion of endless net zero rip off energy lunacies.
They hint at getting rid of employer NI which will in effect put higher income taxes on pensioners and investment income. Effectively Employees NI on pensions but called income tax.
The changes to Non Dom will cost more than they raise and make no sense.
CGT down from 28% to 24% but still far too high and no indexation. Yet more deluded socialism.
600 jobs a day created they boast, but 2000 migrants a day arriving who is paying for them?
March 7, 2024
Good morning
At the risk of blowing my own trumpet, can I just say that it was me that first mooted this on this here site.
Employers NI is a tax on jobs. Nothing else. Getting rid of it will allow employers more money to spend. It is sad that an opportunity to reduce, and then get rid of this tax was missed. Perhaps Labour will pick up the batton.
March 7, 2024
If you employ people on minimum wage, then the complete removal of employers NI will not compensate the employer for the increase in the minimum wage.
Removing NI means that we will all receive the pension as a ābenefitā rather than as a right, so we will all be equal with the newly arrived boat people. No grounds to complain that they use āourā NHS and never contribute.
March 7, 2024
@Lynn Atkinson – in the eyes of this Conservative Government those that contribute and pay to maintain our society are less equal than those criminals arriving by boats. Break the Law and you get rewarded that is this version of a Conservative Governments way of doing things
March 7, 2024
They already call it a benefit in any correspondence. I asked for my income tax back on my pension as benefits are not taxed. Of course, my letter went in the bin without even an acknowledgement. My pension increase has now been wiped out by the council tax and water rate increases before we start and my wife’s has been wiped out by being dragged into the tax system now. We are not aligned with the boat people, they don’t pay anything for anything. There are no tax cuts, its all a con and looks like a scorched earth policy to embarrass Labour rather than an attempt to win back voters. What a shower! Political point scoring more important than the people as usual. Cannot wait to vote Reform after most of a lifetime of voting Tory. Never again.
March 7, 2024
Yes, precisely this: wake up everyone; your national insurance is being removed so your state pension can be.
March 7, 2024
But where will the ‘saving’ of tax be levied instead?
March 7, 2024
We are spending something like half of the supposed tax reduction on paying for the recent immigrants, as a minimum. In other words we could have had a 50 percent bigger tax reduction if we were not out of control on immigration. Plus more of course that is not in the straightforward figures. Personally I would have hit serco with a windfall tax for making so much money from out of control immigration.
March 7, 2024
Our VAT threshold is much more than most other Countries in Europe, it is capped there at 85,000 EUR. https://www.fonoa.com/blog/vat-registration-thresholds-in-the-eu
There is nothing to say Labour will keep it; they could reduce it down to the EU average of around Ā£35,000.
March 7, 2024
a-tracy
Why should we worry about what the EU is doing……. ah should not rock the boat, there may be another plan !
The only boat that really needs rocking/stopping is the Illegal dinghy route !
March 8, 2024
Apparently Alan, and I donāt know if this is true or not, we are still tied to the EU and all their rules on taxation, due to the agreement for the United Kingdom to trade with a component member in Northern Ireland, its all very bizarre I thought weād left. It just sounds like an excuse to me to keep aligned so that Labour (who are being overly bulled up right now) can realign us. More fool India for not signing the agreement up quickly with Kemi.
March 6, 2024
As a pensioner there is no “tax cut” for me as I don’t pay NI. There is however a tax rise for me due to inflation as you have held the personal allowances constant.
The vape tax is bizarre, do you not want people to stop smoking ? Do you want a black market in vapes to develop in the same way a black market in cigarettes is now standard ? Like banning flavoured vapes – since when did banning something eliminate it ? Drugs are banned and yet their use is absolutely widespread and effectively decriminalised in many instances including across Westminster.
Your idea for a Brit ISA is stupid and complex and Starmer will cancel that one right away.
March 7, 2024
Dear Roy Grainger,
Just as previous PMs are remembered mainly for things they would not wish (ERM, Iraq, the Crash etc), so I fear that Mr Sunak will go down as the friend of organised crime in th UK: banning most vapes, the rolling tobacco ban, ignoring shoplifting and burglary, and so far failing to stop people smugglers.
March 7, 2024
I think that the Brit ISA has some merit. But in practical terms, I will be shifting some of my existing exposure to the UK stock-market (on which I pay tax), into the ISA, while, overall, reducing my holdings of British company shares, down to a still-overweight 12.5% of my portfolio. The FTSE 100 – which hasn’t moved anywhere in the past five years – will show if Hunt’s plan is working.
I was interested to see that Hunt is planning on selling off his stake in NatWest over the summer, rather than waiting until the autumn, when the FTSE 100 tends to have more life in it.
March 7, 2024
S-W
“The FTSE 100- which hasn’t moved anywhere in the past 5 years…”
Which is why many Pension funds and investment companies have invested abroad.
March 6, 2024
Holiday letās, APT determined to hit families most who want to get away. Well done. How dare we want to get away and enjoy ourselves.
Hammer pensioners. Pretend to be on their side with the triple lock and then, as usual lacking guts claw it back stealthily. How dare they try and improve their quality of life in retirement having prudently saved. Letās actually increase their taxes to the highest ever.
More money to NHS for improvement, how many times have we been promised that before including Hunt when in health.
Public Sector improvement, smoke and mirrors. We donāt believe you.
An unambitious, no real enterprise or growth, certainly not a vote winning budget.
Itās pathetic. Shows the mess you have made with economy that you canāt even find bribes this close to the election.
An insult, like so much of this government to Conservative Party history and tradition.
March 7, 2024
We know several pensioners who have spent most of their remaining savings, that were held to allow more happiness in the remaining years, to be spent on operations in the teens of Ā£thousands. The years of wait and increasing pain and reduction of health could not be coped with, so they spent what they had left to go private.
In some cases being told the same surgeon would have done the job on NHS if they felt they could endjure more years of it.
March 7, 2024
The Benefits System favours the reckless.
If Susan has lived frugally for 50 years to save Ā£50k, she has to pay for her care in later life.
If Jim has spent his life on drugs, rock & roll, loose women and gambling, he could be 100k in debt. He qualifies for free care equal in quality to Susanās, using what the government charges her to pay for it.
That combines both diversity and equality as far as this government cares.
March 7, 2024
That’s what happened to my dad when he had to go into care after living with us until it got dangerous. He paid for his care with his bungalow whilst his room mate who smoked drank and betted all his life and had no savings got everything for free.
March 8, 2024
That reminds me about not wasting money on betting, when there are wine, women and song – if only I could remember what that was all about!
March 7, 2024
I know similar stories about dentistry costs exceeding Ā£4000 for a simple bridge for a pensioner.
March 6, 2024
From start to finish Hunt was provocative in many ways. What we have just witnessed is an act of sabotage. Read between the lines and you’ll see a politician whose only purpose is weaken this nation
March 7, 2024
and realising that the message in the drawer for the new Government will read like ‘ Well good luck dealing with what we were unable to sort out’.
March 6, 2024
I think the Chancellor did the best he could with money available. I do think there should be more disincentives so people have to go to work if they are able and not be dependent on government handouts. As for holiday lets, I’m in two minds. I have friends in the West Country whose children cannot rent anywhere because decent accommodation is being rented out as Air B&Bs.
March 7, 2024
Good points. I’m not a fan of ‘social housing’ – but there’s an obvious need for some in thosee fashionable seaside resorts. 20% of the housing-stock? And the tenants of those houses should not be eligible for RTB schemes and must be willing to move out into a smaller place when they hit retirement age.
Elsewhere, RTB tends to improve areas but the discounts should be kept small enough – less than 10%? – so that council tax-paying homeowners are not being exploited.
March 7, 2024
There in a nutshell is what is wrong with housing in this country – houses are meant to be homes not profit centres for the already wealthy. We will never solve the housing shortage – it does not pay the profiteers to do so, hence slow house building, not starting already permissioned sites, land banking etc. etc.
March 6, 2024
really when one of the countries main children’s hospitals is asking for 1.5 million quid for something the entire rest of the developed worlds children’s hospitals have…
https://www.bch.org.uk/pages/category/imri
spaffing away millions here and there on virtue signalling makes me throw up
the throwing billions of quid at NHS IT systems which the NHS is incapable of procuring properly, incapable of managing the subcontractors, incapable of coping with the business change needed… is all a repeat of Blairs massive mistake throwing billions of quid at NHS IT which has completely failed to deliver any of the business benefits listed at the time
telling us that being proud of the NHS is what makes us British is hilarious, we all know that the entire political class think the NHS is crap in private, but none of them have the courage to say that in public, and continuing to peddle the hype of the sacred cow of the NHS is doing nobody any good, its the national emperors new clothes its about time we all recognised that. we need to copy from the best of the rest of the world and quickly.
I see work visa holders still get to spend their first 12 months in the UK completely free of both employers and employees national insurance, baking into the system ways like this that they can undercut locals is not good enough.
frankly I have had enough.
broadly you are correct John, the Bank of England has been allowed to get away with allsorts of crazy nonsense, and so has the FCA and FOS.
the whole political class are a joke, as are the senior execs of the public sector, the country could do far better if the all resigned.
there are plenty of sink estates in England that need money more than the places in Ukraine, India, and so on that the government is spaffing money around in
March 6, 2024
What a total waste of time. Call the election.
March 7, 2024
hanging on by finger tips, with the electorate shouting ‘let go!’
March 6, 2024
Distinctly under-impressed.
How he’s got the nerve to say the NHS is the biggest reason most of us are proud to be British is beyond me. What an indictment on the Not-a-Conservative-Party, if that’s what they truly believe. It’s a dysfunctional, incompetent money-pit, with 2nd world levels of health outcomes. Throwing even more money at it will achieve nothing. It needs fundamental reform.
I’ll be joining the swollen ranks of the not economically active. I still have a “little job” and had intended to keep it going for another year or two. But because of my other sources of income, I’ll lose everything I earn in tax. So I’m going to become a lady of leisure.
March 7, 2024
Indeed the NHS is a sick joke. The best way to save money and get better healthcare is to have fair competition between state and private healthcare provision to lighten the load on the NHS. Tax breaks for those who use the private system, Same for education. Not a state virtual monopoly that is āfreeā at the point of use. Only free for the few who really cannot afford to pay something.
March 7, 2024
The NHS is the closest things we have to a national religion and no MP or political party wants to slaughter that particular cow.
Make personal health insurance a tax free benefit. Wean people off the NHS and create a competitor to the NHS by which we can compare and force improvement there of.
The last 14 years has been spent enriching those that benefit from all the Green Crap and MASS IMMIGRATION.
March 7, 2024
The cow is dead! No slaughter required. Just stop feeding the dead cow!
March 7, 2024
The reform of the NHS required is payment by procedure not grant
Pay for doing not being
March 8, 2024
You can do plenty procedures on a cancer patient and still let them die decades earlier than they would in any other developed country. That’s what the NHS does. We need to have metrics based on results and patient satisfaction, nothing else matters, certainly not volumes of procedures.
March 7, 2024
The NHS needs reform alright, but not by politicians. The Tories had a go at that from 2012 and that’s what we’ve got now. They must be kicked out. Nothing can be worse than this lot.
March 6, 2024
The budget was largely as predicted. Readers expressed their thoughts just before the budget was read out. Almost all were negative.
March 6, 2024
Camilla Tominey spot on. A left leaning budget kidnapped by the One Nation group apparently trying to take Labours ground from under them.
If I am going to get a Labour Party budget, I might as well vote for them. They may be less incompetent.
March 7, 2024
+1
March 7, 2024
Disagree. If you are going to get it and disagree you should vote against it. Single issue party or spoil your paper
March 6, 2024
Generally an adequate budget, but an election winning option has been missed. Why do pensioners have to pay tax on abasic pension. Robbing Peter to pay Paul again.
March 7, 2024
What bit was āadequateā?
March 7, 2024
the mean spirited tax has been a complaint for nearly all the years of your Government’s policies.
And what is worse will help unload the Scrooge party.
March 7, 2024
+1
March 6, 2024
āThe NHS is rightly the reason most of us are proud to be British.ā
Our health service is appalling. The worst outcomes for common cancers in the developed world.
Record waiting times.
People in great pain a year away from seeing a consultant.
People dying unnecessarily.
Takes a week to see a GP, then get palmed off with a PA, paramedic, or nurse pretending to be a doctor.
And he says we should be proud!
We have a massive backlog of cancer treatment, yet there are 3 private mothballed big cancer centres which have been offered to the NHS and they decline.
We have PA’s replacing actual doctors for more cost, with zero ability to diagnose and should not be seeing undifferentiated patients.
We have NHS actively avoiding detecting cancers early because it goes against their metrics, if they identified more early then they would have to do more treatment, and the waiting lists would climb. They are perversely incentivised to let people develop cancer so that its too advanced to save them, cos it keeps their lists smaller for standard life saving treatments.
A child of 6 could figure this stuff out.
March 7, 2024
+1
March 7, 2024
The GP businesses and NHS have no idea of what triage could and should do.
March 7, 2024
triage is mainly done by GP receptionists and 111 call handlers these days, and neither are qualified to do it.
in a “first come first served” system when you have to ring at 8.00 am precisely, wait for an hour, to be eventually answered and told that all the appointments are gone and they cannot take an appointment for the future… there needs to be proper triage.
a sensible system would put actual nurses and doctors handling the first call, and doing proper triage, and not using unskilled people following a script badly. and yes there are the nurses around to take such jobs, if the terms and conditions were attractive, they could be sucked out of the work done by nurses for the department for work and pensions assessing disability claimants which is a far lower national priority in the scheme of things, plenty recently retired that could be tempted back if given decent management and motivation, etc. there are a lot of locum GP’s around unemployed at the moment, as practises have been forced to replace them with paramedics, nurses, and PA’s due to the way the funding model from the NHS works, plenty of extra funding for staff but not for actual GP’s.
this would also surface that there is a lot of trivia that the NHS simply does not have the capacity to deal with, and alternate providers will emerge privately, as the have in ENT, dentistry, and so on, where the NHS has given up even pretending to provide a decent service.
March 6, 2024
After the UKĀØs collapse, after the bloodshed, after the revolution … Redwood for President.
It canĀ“t happen soon enough.
March 7, 2024
+1
March 6, 2024
The Budget is a bit of a mouse, as it must be because the Chancellor has not reduced public expenditure by shrinking the role of the State. Without that, his room for manoeuvre is limited, as indicated by the fact that State debt will remain constant at 93% of GDP.
Does he intend to phase out NI? That might explain the steadfast refusal to raise income tax thresholds.
March 7, 2024
Indeed phasing out employees NI is in effect putting NI on pensions and investment income so another tax grab in effect using fiscal drag.
March 7, 2024
NI receipts both employers and employees will be circa,Ā£180 billion this year less Ā£10 billion from this budget.
Government cash will be short Ā£143 billion for 24/25. So with Gilt redemptions, DMO will be raising some Ā£260 billion. Plus, BOE is planning to sell Ā£100 billion of its QE stash by next October.
That’s a lot of spending power to take out of the economy. But it will reduce demand side inflation and some employment.
March 6, 2024
Not a vote winner.
Bit dull.
I wonder if Hunt and Sunak actually want to win the next election.
March 7, 2024
Starmer had it right when he said one of them was dreaming of sunshine in Santa Monica. Just what I said a couple of years ago. When he loses, Sunak will high tail it to the States – he has no interest in this country other than having PM on his CV and that’s now done.
March 6, 2024
Another budget of missed opportunities.
Subsidies for electric vehicles need to be removed completely- and vehicle choices need to be left to market forces. Potential penalties for manufacturers whose range of current vehicles does not meet artificially targets
that have been imposed need to be removed . How can a so-called Conservative Govt. claim that there exists a fair market and a level playing field in vehicle purchases ? Announcing a move towards road pricing in the
future and linking that to vehicle overall weights should help BEV drivers make a fair contribution to paying their fair share of tax .
If HMG had achieved a thriving and viable market for cheap electricity – especially renewables, things might be different- but UK’s energy security is dire- almost laughable.
The main financial benefits of BEV ownership are currently being achieved by the wealthy – and very wealthy – and they have been subsidised by HMG along the way as well.
That is deplorable – and un-conservative.
The market place needs to be where these arguments are decided – even though this will mean a slower
( but fairer ) adoption of BEV technology.
The longer it takes- the more time there will be for more competitive alternatives to emerge- that will benefit a
much larger %’age of the population.
March 7, 2024
+1
March 7, 2024
Blair was warned in 1997 that the ageing generation plants were coming to an end and he did nothing, the same as all subsequent PM’s. They have the foresight of a goldfish.
March 6, 2024
Not much to write about. A bit of a damp squib.
Tax thresholds frozen.
Not enough time to chase productivity in the public sector now. Conservatives will be out of office soon and the bodies affected will either go slow or ignore any proposals.
March 6, 2024
More thought went into the speech and scoring political points than the outcome of the measures I fear.
March 7, 2024
And no thought went into the speech ā¦
March 7, 2024
Yep – it was badly-written.
March 6, 2024
What utter, utter stupidity to spend Ā£1m, indeed anything at all, on divisive war memorials.
Are we to waste money on a war memorial for the Jews who fought in the war and all the other religions?
– I thought not.
We are all equal for God’s sake!
With best wishes to you John Redwood.
Colin
March 7, 2024
Colin
Yes, a special war memorial for one group! Divisive. Huge comment on social media where it has gone down like a bowl of sick.
March 7, 2024
There is a junction on the A40 called the Polish War Memorial.
I doubt that us cos Ā£1 million or equivalent but it is there
March 8, 2024
You know why? Well during the WW2 the ‘free’ Polish airmen came to Northolt and were VERY successful in shooting down the German planes. Eventually it was wondered why their hit rate was so good. I read that a review realised they were brave enough to fly close up the German ‘rear-end’ before firing, thus were much more destructive. The Memorial is appropriate recognition and thanks for their contribution.
Years ago a parked Spitfire could be seen at the edge of the airport, I’m not sure if it is still visible.
March 7, 2024
Colin:
Quite!
Surely, we have a memorial that commemorates ALL those who served in the two World Wars. It is called The Cenotaph.
March 7, 2024
+1
March 7, 2024
Yes we have to hope Sir John will survive the night of the dark crosses on the ballot paper, who seriously wants a hopeless LibDem MP – the Council here is bad enough. Sadly many foresee him being a lonely figure on the Opposition benches thinking and saying ‘I told you so!’
March 7, 2024
MT
Indeed, vote for the candidate, not the Party !
Problem with our system is if you vote for one, the other gets the credit and probably remains leader, although I guess not for long if the Conservatives lose.
March 7, 2024
There is still time Sir John to abandon the ship you thought was seaworthy only to find holes below the water-line. Go Independent if you can’t bring yourself to join/head Reform. Somebody needs to lead the way to save this country, and it isn’t the shower you are loyal to!
March 6, 2024
It doesn’t even merit the description ‘lacklustre’. By continuing with the feeze on Personal Allowance and the Higher Rate threshold he has held two fingers up to us all.
March 7, 2024
indeed and continuing the lunacy of rip off energy and the misguided net zero religion.
March 6, 2024
FHL changes aimed at getting folk to sell-out quickly to make room for incomers supported by government money either directly or through silly support schemes to buy. Quite how the tourist industry operates given the shortage of service staff and hotels also used for incomers is a moot point. Perhaps they want us all to holiday abroad?
NI cut is illusory with inflation ripping a hole through fiscal drag.
As I already said, don’t count on this to add a single vote.
March 7, 2024
They don’t want you to holiday at all. They want to price you out of owning a car, keep you in your 15-minute city, dictate what you eat, work until you drop and then they take the bulk of your assets via inheritance tax. When the baton is passed to Labour we will see a universal basic income introduced, a garden tax to stop people from growing their own food, positive discrimination in the workplace, and open borders. The Britain I once loved has gone for good, unfortunately.
March 6, 2024
Maybe you should freeze all foreign aid spending until the UK finances have been established
March 7, 2024
+1
March 7, 2024
At least there would be some logic and positivity about it.
March 6, 2024
Yet another pathetic disaster of a budget. What else could we expect from CCP fan Hunt? Seems like he likes the very people terrorizing poor snowflake MPs too. Just about everybody I know says they would like to leave this country now, something I’ve never heard before. Sadly I’m the wrong colour to simply walk into another country illgally and get a passport and free house otherwise I’d already be gone before the shower in Westminster have us all eating each other on the streets.
March 7, 2024
Where would you go? All Western countries seem to be following the same destructive course.
March 7, 2024
Christine, 15 years living in Spain indicate otherwise, I miss it greatly. Were I a talented 30 year old I would be off to Australia or Canada.
March 7, 2024
My boy – a doctor – and his fiancee – a doctor – and their whole friendship circle from med school is off this year.
This country is finished.
I doubt there will be more than a few tens of Tory MPs left.
March 7, 2024
you won’t even get great odds at the bookies.
March 7, 2024
Why?
March 6, 2024
Complete socialist shit show where he peddles green myths to increase tax. Another good bland high tax, highly regulated, overspend, debt and borrow socialist budget. Extend windfall tax on home produced energy! Why not shot business, residents and the economy in the foot!
Get out you just played the worse hand possible. No need to wait.
Ā£1 million for a Muslim statue!! FFS. The war dead irrespective of ethnicity were buried under one stone to demonstrate everyoneās sacrifice was equal! Is he thick or overtly racist towards white people?
Where was the announcement to deport all immigrants on welfare ie 1.6 million of them?
March 7, 2024
Yes Hope, when he opened with a sectarian racist proposal for a Muslim memorial I knew the whole performance would flat line. Our war dead are the only truely multicultural society in death. They sacrificed their lives to overcome identifyable evil, they do not need segregation on racial grounds. Unit memorials are entirely different, they remember events not racial content.
March 6, 2024
Sir John
“There is an overall tax cut,” Confused, even the people that never get these things right, but the Chancellor relies on them and basis his action on their say-so the OBR have come out and said today’s Budget will rise taxes to the 2nd highest level since records began.
March 6, 2024
It is clear that Hunt as such an admirer of Gordon Brown has seen his best move is to emulate him. Then this crowd wonder why think they are extreme Socialist with no intention of giving any support to the UK. Its no longer name calling, the keep confirming it.
March 7, 2024
Sir John, No there isn’t an overall tax cut, and you know it!
March 6, 2024
Sir John
Plagiarizing someone else’s(Anon) comment
“I remember with affection when the Tories could not only run a bath, but knew the cost of filling it, when it was prudent to utilise a lower-cost alternative such as a shower, and when to make do and mend with a good old cold hand-towel wash.
Now, they seem to understand very little at all. Not the concerns of the average man, certainly, and not how businesses and people respond to the perverse prods and incentives of our tax system.
They certainly don’t understand the need for government to live within our means.
Utterly clueless, the lot of ’em. “
March 7, 2024
Spot on Ian B. Last night the citizens of Whitehaven, where the income level is 30% higher that the national average, gave their verdict on GBNews Farage at large. Nobody would vote conservative at the next GE. Even the current Conservative MP, a local activist, will bale out at the next GE. This is where the wet hand of Hunt and consocialism have dragged us.
March 6, 2024
From the MsM
“The Chancellor rightly said that low taxes are good for growth, but the overall tax burden will soon hit its highest level since 1948; GDP per capita will fall again this year; North Sea oil and gas will be hammered by an extension of the supposedly one-off āwindfallā tax; immigration is rising even faster than predicted and the Governmentās great plan to cure collapsing productivity in the NHS and public sector is to spend a few billion more on AI, rather than usher in real structural reform. “
March 7, 2024
For the next five Years, the offering at the next GE, is ths Budget results in a Ā£800 py Tax raise for the average person!
This is a leftwing, One Nation Tory Budget, from People that have not given up on Net Zero!
Suicide! They must know what they are doing, they can’t be that stupid?
No coherence to the Budget, aimless?
No idea, any more! I hope you don’t expect me to vote for them, any more?
BR
RDM
March 7, 2024
When are politicians going to escape the Gordon Brown budgets ?
This is all about soothing rather than growth.
It just feels so infantilising.
March 7, 2024
Keep taking the aspirin for that broken arm!
March 7, 2024
Paying for a war memorial for one religion is a mistake. It is divisive nonsense. We should be encouraging shared experiences, integration, and in remembrance of the war dead of all religions we had a small example of that. It’s exactly the kind of discrimination we don’t need. Our politically socially engineered society is ending up such a mess, actively setup to have massive tensions. Crazy crazy crazy.
March 7, 2024
+1
March 7, 2024
I agree. What on earth made Sunak and Hunt think that that was an appropriate way to start a budget speech? And I immediately went to see how much government money had been put into the Bomber Command Memorial – to find that the answer was ……………………….. nothing.
March 7, 2024
What about Hinduism, Judaism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Spiritism – I suppose Christianity is catered for.
March 7, 2024
I said most of what I wanted to say yesterday, a budget for a sclerotic society. Uninspiring, dull, and ineffective.
Not a word to reduce the National or Local government overhead on the people of the UK. Same old bloated civil service, staying at home producing negative productivity figures, living on the backs of the productive. Great disincentive to the seriously wealthy to remain in the UK. Not a word on the shrunken state of our defence forces. The NI reduction will be sucked back by the atrophied thresholds of jncome tax and IHT.
I would not vote for them were they the only game in town. Time for Reform to repeatedly show what they have on offer to the next GE.
March 7, 2024
Im really disappointed, but not too surprised. As a Pensioner, I am getting nothing in this Budget. Yes, I will get the Triple Lock uplift on my Pension, but I will have to pay 20% Income Tax on that, as I did last year. The rest will be swallowed up with an increase in Council Tax, and various increased bills.
There were no ācost of livingā payments for me. They were only for people on benefits, who pay no tax.
I know that Labour will be just as bad – or worse – so I will not be voting for any if the main Parties, and quite possibly not voting at all, the first time since I reached the age of being eligible to vote.
March 7, 2024
sadly ‘Girl’ – apathy has become the easiest choice faced with this lame-duck Government, and crap alternatives.
Reform might be a choice in some places, but ..
March 7, 2024
The triple-locked pension increased by nearly 20% in two years. People are arguing that it shouldn’t have been maintained I believed that lock will be stopped with a Labour government. They are going to be relying on pension credits to get money to those they think are most in need. If they can, I suspect that tax and NI will be merged (Hunt has started the gun on this one), so everyone pays 30% tax.
March 7, 2024
At the risk of being lynched in this thread, I’ll suggest that the budget was, in many ways, rather good. But there’s more action needed at the Autumn Statement. The challenge for government, over the course of this year, will be to show that some of what was announced yesterday is having early effects. The audience on GBN’s Dewbs & Co was mightily unimpressed!
March 7, 2024
no not lynched just worried for your mind!
March 7, 2024
We should get an opinion poll soon where people are asked if they feel better off thanks to the budget, or not. Then we’ll see how well Hunt has managed with his main objective, of limiting damage to his party’s prospects in the next election.
March 7, 2024
I’m taking my first Business class flight on the 18th, to Verona (for Venice). I could have booked Economy, but I thought I would treat myself, our of my taxed income, and contribute a little more to the state’s finances. But it wasn’t enough for Hunt, was it? I find it quite annoying, after booking flights, to see just how little goes to the ……………………………………… airline.
March 7, 2024
I always enjoy your speeches and interventions and look forward to seeing you today. I understand the measures made by the chancellor but for me and other pensioners, it does nothing. It seems he is punishing us for years to come because we have worked hard, and contributed well to the economy only to see more and more of us in future years losing more of our pension in tax due to the freeze on personal allowances.
I have been a supporter of the Conservative party from my first voting opportunity at 18 years of age to the last general election and supported our leaving the EU since John Major took us further into political ties with Europe. The job of getting us out of the EU is incomplete in so many ways. At the last election, the government was given an overwhelming majority which has been blown apart through splits in the party due to poor leadership. At 72, should I be worried about who runs the country? A vote for a Conservative government will be lost in a tidal wave of abstainers, labour, liberal and reformers.
March 7, 2024
JRM states exactly what we all also see – “Sir Jacob said: āMy test for today’s budget was could it have been delivered by Rachel Reeves? Was there really going to be an important difference between what a brave, bold conservative Chancellor would do and what a cautious, Brownite socialist Chancellor would do?”
March 7, 2024
Pensioners penalised again so you have lost that vote which you need. Holiday lets – well so they want people to go abroad and not spend money here if there is no where to stay when they have families and dogs and it is too expensive to stay in hotels (that is if you can find one that hasn’t been taken over by illegals). What more can I say? Not impressed one jot.
March 7, 2024
This budget merely confirms what I having been saying for a few years now. We have a Labour government in all but name. The policies espoused and implemented by this so-called Conservative government would have sat happily with the Labour politicians of the 1970s and 1980s. The fact that Hunt has unashamedly stolen policies of the present Labour Party says it all. Part of me thinks that this being so, we might as well have the real thing, as we surely will at the next election. Rationally I know it is going to be so much worse, but I do wish the PM would call the election promptly so that we can get the misery of a Labour government over and done with.
March 7, 2024
What a missed opportunity.
The two big ones from my point of view:
Could have indexed linked the personal tax allowances.
Removed the family home from Inheritance tax completely, making the Inheritance tax a true levelling up procedure throughout the Country.
Very many other points could be mentioned, but no we get smoke and mirrors yet again, with everyone paying more tax.
Does he think we are all stupid ?
Your Party will pay the price in the end John !
March 8, 2024
to reassure you Alan – the end is nigh!
March 7, 2024
See the Chancellor excluded the Bank of England Debt from his calculations, this is dishonest given the taxpayer is also responsible for that debt !
Anyone can make figures look good if they exclude or manipulate them to their own advantage !
Dishonest to say the least !
March 7, 2024
Jeremy Hunt was well informed, in giving a sane, sensible budget. The wretched Opposition keep harping on the Liz Truss episode, which had NO long-term effects. I do wish HMG would make it clear that the Kwarteng mini budget made no difference. The British economy is being buffetted by a series of foreign pressures, about which the Chancellor can do very little.
March 7, 2024
“Happy to read your thoughts.”
There is next to nothing this (not) Tory administration could do, – apart from resigning – that would induce me to vote for them.
But Hunt could have restored the interest allowances which he took away last budget.
The extra Ā£5k for a British ISA seems like a bit of a last minute thought.
If the Tories can cut NI, why can’t they restore the interest allowance cuts?
For the first time in a decade, it’s worth saving and putting some money in to a savings account. But guess what? That’s just the time this supposedly ‘Tory’ government decides to steal it all.
And by the way, Rushi Sunak, standing on the steps of 10 Downing street, and vilifying Galloway for winning a by election is disgusting. The man who couldn’t persuade his own party to elect him, on two occasions, had to go behind the scenes to get himself appointed, should think twice before criticising the democratic process.
March 7, 2024
I speculate on what soporific gas they are using in the parliamentary aircon system to subdue the total disdain for a budget shown by the electorate. It only confirms the bubble in which our representatives live. It deserves to be voted down. They recall for me, members of the french aristocracy waiting to be summond by Madame Guillatine.
The only party that have a thought out battle plan to revitalise the UK in all respects are Reform. Additionally they have costed it. They will get my vote.
March 7, 2024
Yes APL and it must have been particularly galling for Sunak that 1st and 2nd in that election were both independents!
March 7, 2024
The budget was typical of Hunt and Sunak. Neither has any feel for ordinary people or pensioners living on a modest wage or pension. The freezing of the income tax thresholds is very painful for most people but they don’t understand its effect. This was a budget of the cautious, intellectually challenged PM and Chancellor, with no vision, no boldness and completely under the thumb of the Treasury and OBR.
Hunt is a feeble Chancellor who has not tackled Government spending at all. A serious, intellectual, heavyweight Chancellor would have abolished the OBR and spent the last 12 months cutting Government spending so he or she has plenty of room to cut taxes and unfreeze the thresholds. It was a completely missed opportunity to put a clear distance between the Conservatives and Labour. The polls tell you the next GE will be a disaster so maybe Hunt and Sunak have given up on winning. Pathetic, both of them!
March 7, 2024
As an ex-government minister of old succinctly stated earlier today when asked for his response to the budget >There comes a moment when the game is up – and it’s passed <
And whoever thought that JH's Ā£1m opening gesture & words were in any way appropriate….Maybe there was some background to this but it seemed utterly absurd and unfathomable to perhaps those of us just tuning in later on. I did notice on the piece I viewed that the camera focussed in on a nodding Mr Javid sitting next to the MP for Dover.
March 10, 2024
Reducing the rate NI is not a “tax cut”.
NI is/was supposed to be a LEVY. There is a reason it is not simply lumped in with income tax.
Hunt wittered on about abolishing NI – he means employees NI presumably – he said nothing about what that means in terms of NI being a levy…
NI gives entitlement to the state pension. 35 years full NI needed for a full pensions. How will pension entitlement operate if you abolish employee NI?
Simple question, complex answer. If the answer is “everyone gets a pension”… how much will that cost? What will it mean in reality – loafers get a pension without ever doing any work? So few of the obvious, sensible questions are asked these days. The human race is doomed.