It seems todays budget was one very much along the line of swapping the plain deckchair for the striped one, to make the deck look brighter as it sinks beneath the waves.
One theme very much in force was the rule "divide and conquer". i.e. hitting one set of voters hard while missing a related group.
So we get beer and wine drinkers let off relatively lightly with a 2% increase in duty, but Cider drinkers hit with a whopping 10% duty rise. Cider drinkers are persecuted so that others will be thankful to their beneficent Labour government...
The same goes for stamp duty: its abolished (only for 2 years mind) for houses under £250,000, but for those posh nobs buying houses over £1m, it gets increased to 5%.
I'm sure there's more examples, but as always, the detail comes after the waffle of today.
One scary bit is the fact that public sector net debt will reach 54% of gross domestic product this year and increase to a whopping 75% by 2014-15.
One "might as well not have bothered" bit is the £385m earmarked for the roads. I mean, its such a paltry sum why bother, really. Instead, why can't we have all the fucking money we stump up in road tax spent on the roads eh badger bonce?
The zombie that is global warming refuses to die, with a £2bn planned investment in offshore wind and the like.
Finally one thing that did make me chuckle: new tax agreements with Belize, Grenada and Dominica. Lord Ascroft, the "Baron of Belize" will be pleased. Maybe it'll eventually be worthwhile him setting in the UK after all.
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2 hours ago
A wee correction there Del. Drinkers are 2% above inflation which is running at 3%. So drinkers have a 5% increase.
ReplyDeleteI have to substantiate buying so much booze last night. :)
I think all the figures for alcohol duty have "above inflation" added onto them. I do wonder how you calculate that? Is that todays inflation rate, last year's or do we wait a year, then submit our receipts for a final calculation on how much we have to pay in tax?
ReplyDeleteYet another way for the government to rake in even more money and say "it wasn't us, we're not to blame for inflation"... shirking responsibility as always.
Yep, its a good enough reason to get stocked up, but I had almost a years worth of supplies delivered at Christmas. I don't have to worry too much about duty when it's friends and family buying. :-)