Verdict on the budget after the dust has settled

Has he said he's going to treat the most vulnerable badly?

He has explained the balance of cuts he is going to make and they are balanced far more in the direction of benefits than any other party Jane10. I would suggest that people who need benefits could probably be described as vulnerable. He is hardly likely to stand up an say "I am going to treat the most vulnerable badly" is he. The Conservatives, and the right wing press, have done an very effective job of demonising the vulnerable so he may assume other right wingers will think this is a good way to treat their demons.

No one has been told where the £12 billion of cuts to their newly invented category of "welfare" - a word that has not been used for decades because of its implications - will fall, but they are unlikely to make the comfortable and rich vulnerable are they?

I suppose time will tell. It usually does!

Interesting article in the Sunday Observer today. Osborne has failed on every one of his targets, that as well as the omnishambles in 2012 makes him one of the most useless chancellors in recent times. He was also in charge of the Tory last election and failed to get a majority. The only hope is that he will continue to diet until he disappears altogether.

I find it truly amazing that the message that the economy is safe in Tory hands has been made so believable. The Long Term Economic plan seems more like a threat than a promise

I think George Osborne has done a great job as Chancellor. Heaven help us if Ed Balls becomes Chancellor the country will go to the dogs.

There is a handy graph in the middle of this article

www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/apr/06/welfare-britain-facts-myths

Where it says housing, does that all go to the unemployed?

No the working poor will also receive help and I should imagine that these were the larger proportion, especially with the low pay and zero hours contracts that there is now.

So if the minimum wage was increased a fair bit, that might offset some of the housing benefit, but the working poor would be no better off?

I think GO always takes short term solutions that might be popular in some quarters as they appear to save or bring in money. However, I think many of the policies are storing up massive problems for the future.

Of course who ever gets in in May , there will be another budget - so if the one GO has recently presented to a breathless nation is supposed to calm our nerves with regard to the upcoming cuts what will he do when he has 5 more years not to worry about our opinion. He will revert to the 1930 budget he threatened us with in the autumn, and quickly backed away from when he saw public opinion. The current one only takes us back to the 1960's apparently - according to the OBR.

So what's the alternative spend spend spend like the last Labour government (no money left in the pot) that's certainly a short term solution for the gullible think about your grandchildren and their children. If Labour gets in there will be no money left and no prospects for future generations.

Speak to my mother aged 97 and she will tell you that for most of her life -she was born in 1918 - the debt to GDP ratio was higher or as high than it is now, and no-one got into a lather about it. People and governments were concerned to have a fairer society, with the poor falling into a safety net and the health of the nation being cared for. How did we manage to set up the NHS after the war when we owed so much money? I don't recall feeling peeved that my parents generation did not address the debt, but was grateful for the strides they made in in a welfare society with my children being born and cared for in an appropriate way - I come from working class stock and at no time in my early life could I have afforded either to have existed if I was made unemployed or private health care.

What GO is doing and to a certain extent the Labour party is undermining the gains made for ideological reasons in GO's case and for political reasons in the Labour case.

Of course this doesn't mean a free for all with no proper prudent management of the countries finances but this should not mean that the those with the least clout should be the ones to grind into the ground - what sort of society is that?

We should not have as high a debt as we have in war times.
What happens if a war comes along?

That's my point soon look at the level of debt in the first half of the 20 century and it was far higher than it is now and yet we managed to set up the welfare state, build social housing for those who needed it, cleared the slums, improved our education system, have a decent police force and defence force whilst all the time the debt was far higher than it is now and if you look at the second half of the 20 century despite doing all that we managed to bring down our debt.

If war comes along we borrow - simples

I agree with Eloethan about the short-termism of GO's chancellorship. You can hear the creaking or so many of the areas we hold dear.

He has also applauded the way various institutions have managed to cope with the cuts so far and used this as an argument to say they will manage the even deeper cuts to come. That reasoning would make me suspect more than just his logic.

I also feel Whitewave is reminding us to beware a Chancellor's bearing gifts, even if that gift is just a promise that we can "trust the Tories with the economy". To them it is just about money. They may talk about a balanced economy but they do so like an accountant does about a balance sheet. They seem to have no sense that running a country is actually done for the people in that country. They remind me of some of the old army chiefs who sent soldiers to battle never minding that thousands of them will die as long as we win the war. After GO has finished with us the casualties will be huge and the war we win will just be a pot of gold.

On your last post Whitewave I would agree with your mother. After the war we built because we needed to build. Another such initiative would be brave but there is no reason to think it could not have the same positive effect; except for those hoarding their capital in the shape of houses while others don't have homes, of course.

And magpie GO has spun his web well if you think people are safer with him.

I do not think that any government will have an easy answer to all the problems which have arisen over the years. We can only vote for the people we think might serve the country best, and hope that our children and grand-children will live in a society which cares for the vulnerable, looks after the old, and makes sure that everyone in between has a share in that responsibility, led by a government which knows how to handle the economy, the basis of it all. WELL, I CAN DREAM, CAN'T I?

I don't think it is a dream Printmiss but I do think you will find that different people think different parties could fulfil your brief. Personally, I find myself being really happy that the two party system is breaking down.

If a war comes along, soon, we will all be bombed, like Hiroshima was, but a million times worse.
We just have to hope it does not happen.
In the meantime, we should live in a caring society. This present government cares for nobody but themselves and their rich friends.

I agree with Maggie 23, but the additional thought of the SNP holding any future labour government to economic ransom should they ever be in a position so to do, is truly terrifying!! This prospect has certainly made up my wavering mind into whose hands I would trust the economy, and everything else comes to that.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_GDP.png

Seems that you are right whitewave.

Dont agree with you dj about Hiroshima bombing. I have been expecting something like that for 50 years, but it hasnt happened.

I think that 'Welfare' has been talked about for some time, I just with it would be defined. When pensions are lumped in as part of 'benefits' that seems unfair as we have all pain into the pot for what we get out. One of the ways welfare will be cut is when more people are in work and that will bring more into the economy too.

Seems unfair to me to have a go at Osborne and not the rest of them, all parties that is. Don't we all know that they all say what is in their own interests? Can we take anything any of them say as fully truthful? I am cynical about the lot of them!

I do think that we should be happy about some things. For example, lower unemployment than for a very long time. Being one of the best performing economies in the west etc.

There is a long way to go for whichever party gets in but we can all be sure they will be thinking about themselves!

Thanks for the link soon hadn't thought of that but it shows our debt level very well doesn't it?

Lower unemployment is good nonnie but when that new employment is so poorly paid that most people are dependent on the state to exist in the form of various benefits then our welfare bill will not go down much in fact we are busy subsidizing the employers. People need a living wage in order to be independent of the state and be able to walk tall.

With regard to the UK's growth rate, it may be nearly at the level of 2010 which is just before the Tories took office. Compared to those countries like those in Northern Europe we are doing slightly better. However if we compare ourselves with the USA who has taken the same course as the Labour Government started after the crash i.e. refusing to go down the austerity lines and supporting the economy, as a result the USA's growth is at 2.2%. The sky hasn't fallen in on the USA in fact they are sitting pretty compared to most of the European countries who are still weighed down under the austerity regime. The US population apart from the time of the crash has hardly noticed this time of great austerity.