Budget Response

Today, after rent-a-car ministers, we had the budget. With much of this already anounced in the pre budget report before Christmas, today saw a failed Government eeking out the last few spoonfuls of gruel it had to offer.
Vince Cable has responded to today's budget by saying "Today's budget wasn't honest.
The Chancellor is incapable of coming clean about where spending cuts will have to fall. Rather than being honest with people about what the Government can and cannot afford, the Chancellor would rather let others indiscriminately shave departmental budgets.
And the Budget did nothing to make Britain a fairer society.
We're campaigning for fair taxes, lifting millions of people out of income tax altogether. But today's Budget, by confirming the freeze in personal allowances, means everyone will see a real increase in their income tax bill.
Rather than forcing the nationalised banks to lend to good British businesses, Labour have chosen to create a feeble quango to arbitrate between bullying banks and their small business clients.
Today's Budget shows even more clearly that Britain needs real change."

See Vince's response on video here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/LibDem#p/u/6/qML-FOOAYYo

Bingo and Boilers

I am still trying to work out what Chancellor Darling is trying to achieve with his Pre Budget Report today. It looks like a strange mish mash of proposals which don't tackle the heart of the deficit and upset the maximum number of people. Then there is the bingo tax reduction which is just bizarre! One thing is for certain, Mr Darling is avoiding the real pain that we will all have to take when measures need to be taken to cut deep into the budget black hole. Only he has put it off until after the election. He seems to be counting on voters not having a grasp of how painful this has to be, and there may be some truth in that. But the stuff unveiled today is incoherent and ill conceived. As Vince said today of the windfall tax on bankers bonuses, it is unenforceable. So, a feeble budget from a Government running on fumes. National Insurance rises? No attempt at fairness at all.....