The Summer Budget

"Children are much more likely to be in poverty because they have a parent who is a security guard or a cleaner than one who is an alcoholic or drug abuser'.

Ye gods , is it just me!

If that sums up the criteria for assessing poverty then the world has gone bloody bonkers.

Minimum wage, POGS. Have you heard of it?
There are quite a lot of well paid alcoholics and drug abusers.

Been trying to tell you for ages that the world has gone bonkers, but you just will not listen.

Durhamjen

Too ruddy true I listen alright to bonkers comments.

Yes I have heard of the minimum wage.

As for your other comment yes I know there are both poor and wealthy parents who are alcoholic/drug addicts. The same as there are poor and wealthy parents who neglect their children. The same as there are poor and wealthy parents who physically abuse their children.

So, we are now two days away from the Emergency Budget. If you could insist on just one item being in it what would it be?

For me it would be funding care services and the NHS jointly.

Our county tried the joint working of SSD and NHS for several years and then it fell apart. I am not sure why - but I do know that a massive amount of money was wasted on this experiment, including window dressing like logo design and printing etc.

This is interesting, a petition to ask Cameron to overrule Osborne.

secure.avaaz.org/en/punishing_poor_uk/?bkHcnjb&v=61550

I do not suppose it will work but it might give them a fright.

Have you noticed how often these days Cameron, or Downing Street more often, overrules his ministers? He's done it with IDS, Osborne and Hunt.

Living wage, gracesgran.

How many of you voted Tory because of the promise of putting a cap on the cost of care home fees?
The government promised more integration between health and social care. It pledged that nobody would have to sell their home to fund care in old age, and is committed to a cap of £75000 on care costs.

I have just read that they are thinking of putting a pause on that cap, before the summer recess. It was supposed to be made law for next April.

They do like their pauses don't they. Doesn't they really mean they promised something they were never going to be able to carry out.

Exactly, Gracesgran. They thought there would be a coalition government, and they would not have to go through with it. However, all the main parties supported a cap, so it will be interesting to see what happens when this comes before Parliament, if it does.

I'd still be interested to see how many voted for the Tories because of that.

This petition has been handed in to Downing Street now. It has over 440000 signatures, and they hope to have over half a million before the recess.

www.change.org/p/david-cameron-stop-the-11-pay-rise-for-mps-salaries

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/07/07/what-would-i-do-tomorrow-my-2015-budget/

Quite like to see this budget. We can but dream.....

One of the US presidential candidates has backed the Green new deal.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/07/07/us-presidential-candidate-backs-the-green-new-deal/

Do you remember Cameron hugging a husky and saying vote blue, get green? That didn't last long. I wish they'd get rid of the tree symbol, too, considering they still want to sell off our woodlands and forests and frack beneath the national parks.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/07/corporate-welfare-a-93bn-handshake

Wouldn't need a summer budget if this was stopped.

Whilst in no way opposed to companies paying a proper rate of pay rather than tax credits topping up low wages when the very people receiving them are sometimes paying for them, I do notice that the minimum wage, newly branded by the Conservatives as the "living wage" is not actually as much as the living wage called for by all those bodies who have researched what this should be.

Well it's £1 per hour more than Labour was promising!

I thought it was a very good and balanced budget.

expected a lot more reaction to the facts
have to agree with you roses

Give it time, grannyonce!

It may be Ana but neither Labour or the Conservatives actually pay it so neither party "offer" it they just make business pay for it. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing but it is a bit like the Conservatives saying - and they do - that they have created x number of jobs - inaccurate.

It will be tomorrow when you start to get real reaction grannyonce. That will be when the papers show examples of the winners and losers. At this point it is too complicated to work out. I am glad that you and rosesarered are so easily pleased. I shall wait for the unravelling. Some changes sound, in my view of sensible, sensible but I will want to know if and who, if anyone, will be really affected by the changes.

Agree with you, GracesGran. Just because he has called it a living wage doesn't mean it is one. At the moment I think the living wage is £7.65 as paid by all those companies that pay it. All he will be doing is increasing the minimum wage.

GG, ah, if only I was easily pleased with things! I am guessing that Labour voters will pick holes in the budget, whatever it was, but I saw nothing in it to alarm anyone and a lot of good sense ideas.

And not just Labour voters. There are those who are anti-Conservative seemingly just for the sake of it.

It's actually £7.85 at the moment and more than £9 in London, so how he thinks £7.20 is going to be a living wage next April is beyond a joke.

www.theguardian.com/society/reality-check/2015/jul/08/george-osborne-budget-national-living-wage

As I say I shall wait to see the analysis. This is nothing to do with it being a Conservative budget rosesarered, I would say the same whichever party had produced a budget as the devil is always in the detail. I don't think it is a question of picking holes but of proper analysis. As for nothing to alarm anyone - as the tax and spending savings amount to £17bn tax someone is going to notice .

I suppose they will have to find a new name for what has been estimated to really be a living wage Jen.

I think you'll find there are a lot more people than those on here who agree that it's not a living wage.

www.livingwage.org.uk/calculation