The ‘unavoidable Budget’, as it was termed, took 55 unpleasant minutes to deliver. That was all the time it took Chancellor George Osborne to deliver an eye-watering rise in VAT, wholesale cuts in welfare and a public sector pay freeze.
Presenting his first Budget to a packed House of Commons, he laid the blame for the pain ahead firmly at the door of the former Labour government, saying: “The years of debt and spending make this unavoidable.”
His Budget, Mr Osborne said, was ‘tough but fair’, and one which would see all sections of society contribute – even the Queen, who had agreed a freeze on the £7.9m she gets. Fortunately for Her Majesty, she is less likely than the rest of the country to feel the pinch from the hike in VAT to 20pc, or the child benefit freeze.
Nor is she likely to suffer too badly from cuts to family tax credits, housing and disability benefits and the two-year public sector pay freeze for everyone earning more than £21,000.
The 10pc rise in capital gains tax may cause a little Royal displeasure.
“Everyone will pay something but the people at the bottom of the income scale will pay proportionately less than those at the top,” said the Chancellor. “This is a progressive Budget.”
Flanked by the glum faces of his new Lib Dem colleagues – the Commons camera angle, strangely, obscured David Cameron – Mr Osborne delivered blow after blow stopping just once for a drink of water.
It wasn’t all bad news – a one-year council tax freeze, a £1,000 rise in the personal tax allowance and re-linking state pensions with earnings were all pulled from the Chancellor’s ageing red box with a flourish. And there would be no further rises in duty on alcohol, cigarettes and fuel.
Mr Osborne also announced a white paper on regional spending, pledged to grow the job market in the regions, and name-checked Manchester’s Metrolink expansion among projects to be kept on.
The real test of whether the contribution to this recovery will be equally felt across society, and across our country, will come as the 25 per cent cuts in government departments begin to bite.
As the M.E.N has detailed over the past six weeks, October’s spending review is set to hit Greater Manchester to the tune of millions – across all services, from education, to transport, health and policing. Despite the smattering of sweeteners nobody can be in any doubt that Mr Osborne is expecting us all to swallow a very bitter pill indeed.
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The real pain will only be felt by the millions of people Labour marshalled into unsustainable and unrepayable debt with billions in cheap credit that has wrecked the banking system and has been bailed out with taxpayers money we don't have.
I suspect we won't be saying any NuLabour MP's begging on the street as they have already raped the taxpayer thru expenses etc and feathered their own nests.
The real pain will only be felt by the millions of people Labour marshalled into unsustainable and unrepayable debt with billions in cheap credit that has wrecked the banking system and has been bailed out with taxpayers money we don't have.
I suspect we won't be saying any NuLabour MP's begging on the street as they have already raped the taxpayer thru expenses etc and feathered their own nests.
Moorlock, London
What a crock. Play a new record Moorlock. Labour are gone, Tory tossers and a new set of public school rich boys are running the show now. This is a tory budget which screws the poorest as usual. And the lib dems, after decades of grasping for power finally get some and have proved themselves incapable idiots. Worse, they have proven themselves to be worse than the tories. Two months ago they were promising now VAT increase, and slagging the tories for wanting to do this. They must hold the world record of any political party for breaking all of their promises in the shortest possible time after getting any kind of power. Scum of the earth every last cringing one of them.
Osborne keeps telling us that the rich will pay the most - but the rich wont suffer the most. They will suffer not at all. We, the already underpaid working class will suffer. My wage, without tax credits, is not much more than i would get on benefits. I am a 40 year old man with a family earning 14k per year - BEFORE TAX!!! Where is my incentive not to just give up and join the millions on the dole queue? Where is my incentive not to just manipulate the system like so many others? These tosspots in government, who have largely never done a real days work in their lives and yet feel qualified to tell us, when they cut our earning capacity to the bone, that this is a 'fair' budget - they manipulate the system to line their own pockets, why not I simply to support my family?
And we are supposed to be appeased that the queen is having her allowance frozen at 7 million quid? Or that the rich are supposedly paying the most? The rich have their cash tucked away offshore, half of them dont even pay tax here. I am raging like so many others are today and you go banging on about 'nulabour' (that is so tired by the way) is just tiresome mate!!!