Budget a Bust

‘Smoke and mirrors’, is a phrase often used to describe magicians, or those who are trying to deceive you. It’s a phrase often thrown at politicians these days, and Jeremy Hunt tried and failed to do the same at the budget last week.

Conservative friends, yes I do have a few, are not pleased along with the rest of us. The con trick was to drop National Insurance by 2%, appearing to save ‘hardworking families’ £9 billion, while the awake among us noticed they were keeping the income tax thresholds exactly where they were, thereby raking in an extra £27 billion, not just from those hardworking families, but those on pensions, that take them into the tax paying bracket of earning more than £12,570 a year. Even the Spectator, the ‘educated’ journal of the small c conservative right, spotted that four million more low paid people will now be paying income tax while, another 3 million will now find part of their earnings and pensions in the 40p tax rate, with some facing the 45p rate.

So, a kick in the teeth all round then, rather than a help in the pocket, and with the realisation that the nation has not been deceived by this latest Conservative ‘party trick’, it seems that our hopes for a May 2nd General Election are now fading in the PM’s hope that ‘something turns up’. What this ‘something’ will be I have no idea and I don’t think Sunak does either, but certainly some previous Conservative voters are openly saying that they will not vote, and others are coming over to the Lib Dem side. Someone needs to stand up for fairness, and it is etched in our constitution.