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It’s hardly going to be a shock that this budget is going to upset more than a few of us, it’s not an easy job to conjure up money & as that’s why we’re in this mess it’s tougher still. Not that this means that I have much sympathy for our Government, they’ve worked damned hard to be there & always knew that this was coming. It will if nothing else go someway to proving who was right on curing the deficit without crippling the country, Labour were adamant that the cuts had to be bearable whereas the Tories wanted savagery & speed. It did worry me a little though that this budget is meant to not only cure the deficit but also to bring prosperity for all, this would appear to be Disney at work. I don’t mind all the flannel but it does keep occurring to me that we were led to believe that by saving the banks we weren’t only saving ourselves but setting ourselves up for a tidy profit to boot, perhaps we didn’t listen closely enough. Anyway, it doesn’t matter all that much right now, we may be preparing ourselves for some bad news but it’s not all that complicated & is mainly focused on where the bad news will hit rather than just how bad it will be.

At the sharp end budgets aren’t all that difficult to do, either you’ve got or have borrowed a surplus & want to rent some popularity or you’re broke & need to raise some cash, no prizes for where we are so far, the trick this time though is to not only get folk to pay more for less but to get them feeling okay about it. This will be a difficult feat to pull off especially in Yorkshire where we generally don’t like paying all that much to start with & tend to regard Governments as bloody awful economists at the best of times, paying more for less may be good business but it makes for bloody awful advertising. There may be the odd sop here & there but even freezing some taxes wont save anyone any money if you’re still going to raise others, surely there’s a limit to how much tax they can shove on fuel? The road tax is enough of a con but the current price of petrol is bad enough without HM revenue gunning to force the poor off the roads again, it’s almost certain that they’ll do it though, they can’t usually resist it. Cutting benefits is always a good target for the Tories & is probably worth doing but only if done properly, forcing people into work is only a real option though if there are jobs for them to be forced into, given the unemployment figures this isn’t all that as an answer. It may be attractive but just stripping people of everything & leaving them competing with their kids for paper rounds & shifts at burger bars will come back to bite you in other areas, of course for those who work only with figures this means little but the real world is different.

When your back’s to the wall financially all you can really do is to spend less or charge more, whichever way you look at it doing both has to be a con of some sort however well intentioned, putting VAT up may raise a few billion but along with the other raises also leaves the economy with less money in it. Luckily for the Government it doesn’t pay for anyone to save anymore since you’re almost bound to lose money on it so aside from the odd piggy bank we may as well spend what we’ve got, if it wasn’t for this I’d see the future in much harsher terms for the incumbents. The bad medicine may be required but who gets to take it is important, kicking the poor is bad for the headlines yet taken as a whole the poor have a better disposable income than the rich, all the rich have is more money which doesn’t count unless they spend it. In the end I guess no matter how we’re all going to be affected by this budget it will be the usual suspects who’ll get it the worst, not the poor because we’re used to not having much & not the rich because they’ll still be rich. It’ll be the ones just about keeping it together now who’ll suffer, the ones on the edges who wont be pushed over straight away but who will be worn down by degrees, too well off for assistance but not well off enough to not need the help. There are always grey areas in life & for those that live in them tomorrow could be painful indeed however I have thought of a way in which this budget can bring both deficit reduction & prosperity for all, first you take away 80% of everything & reduce the deficit accordingly. After a few months when the place looks like a re-run of Greece you put back 40% of everything you took away & then lo & behold everyone feels more prosperous, I may yet send an Email & spare us from the ravages to come.

Update: Nothing on fuel, tobacco or booze? I wonder what will get hit in the real budget?

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