The budget

Germanshepherdsmum

FGS suttonJ, do you expect him to go barefoot and buy all his clothes from charity shops? I’m sure he could have worn far more expensive shoes, for someone in his position £95 isn’t expensive. Far from it. What exactly (and I mean exactly) should he have done for those living at ‘the sharp end’?

What he should have done (in my opinion) and what a Conservative Chancellor would ever do are mutually exclusive, so there's little point in providing the detail you crave.

Millbrook

Bizarrely this thread has cheered me up no end - I was beginning to think GransNet was just full of stuck in the mud Tories who thought children should be seen and not heard!! Good to see there are people who have a social conscience, care about future generations, and recognise a bunch of charlatans when they see them

You should follow this forum a bit more often, Millbrook. There are quite a few awful woke lefties* gathered here ?

*or even not so 'lefties'

Not mentioned in the budget, but the proposal to make 60+ pay for their prescriptions, while this morning's news is running a piece on a proposal to let smokers having vaping on prescription! Has the world gone mad?

You could not be more wrong if you thought that Germanshepherdsmum. The politics threads aren’t the only place where people’s political leanings are evident.

I don’t crave it-growstuff but complaining about Sunak’s choice of footwear doesn’t answer the question. But it’s always much easier to complain, criticise and make sniping personal comments than to put forward sensible and constructive suggestions.

Germanshepherdsmum

FGS suttonJ, do you expect him to go barefoot and buy all his clothes from charity shops? I’m sure he could have worn far more expensive shoes, for someone in his position £95 isn’t expensive. Far from it. What exactly (and I mean exactly) should he have done for those living at ‘the sharp end’?

What he should have done for 'people at the sharp end' is given them some more support to enable them to live their lives with dignity and freedom from fear of extreme poverty. Not inflicted more taxation on them.

Hopefully, though, he's lost a number of potential tory voters

Growing0ldDisgracefully

Not mentioned in the budget, but the proposal to make 60+ pay for their prescriptions, while this morning's news is running a piece on a proposal to let smokers having vaping on prescription! Has the world gone mad?

Yes in some ways it has. People forget there are still retired people who are on the poverty line. Of course most think we are all well off, some maybe, many others not.

Talking of QT last night; the Tory Treasury woman. she was wittering on about EVERY family being £500 per year better off? Did I dream that bit? Maybe she added up the savings on champagne and flights to Edinburgh that we all do weekly........

What I would have liked to see in the budget;

some sort of start to the looming disaster of social care and the implications for hospitals as they are unable to discharge the elderly

some sort of help for carers who are facing crippling heating bills looking after people at home all day

some sort of encouragement for households to insulate their houses

tax, just a little bit, on rental incomes which then has to be used to insulate the rental properties

Just a few ideas off the top off my head, it really isn't difficult, and frankly those who think this budget is a triumph really do not have a grasp of what the future holds, especially for those on a fixed income.

growstuff

Germanshepherdsmum

So precisely what should Sunak have done to satisfy all the whingers?

Does that include all the Conservative back benchers who don't like the higher taxes and spending on public services (apart from the fizz drinking, flying ones)?

Sure many of us drink fizz and fly. Even Labour voters.

Am I alone in thinking that this government just wants all old people to be dead as soon as possible? There was not a single mention of us in the budget. When the weather really turns and our council tax increases and food becomes scarce and expensive some older people will have hard choices to make. Even the Labour response to the budget which was enthusiastically delivered ignored the elderly. I am really annoyed. I have always voted conservative apart from once when I was very cross with them and voted Labour. Now I don't trust either of them and don't think they deserve my vote. I have no idea who might have the interests of the elderly as part of their manifesto.

Economists have commented that a “remarkable lack of priority” had been given to education during the Conservative Party’s decade in power.

... the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), the respected independent economic think-tank, pointed out the education budget will remain low compared with other departments, as growth in public spending does not undo the cuts of austerity. [Huffpost]

I just wonder where else we will see that this Conservative party has fallen down on the job while in power. I thought their record was bad on education but economists use data not human bias. Families now officially know they have been let down and that Conservatives do not see education as a priority - except when trying to pull the wool over people's eyes.

Lincslass

growstuff

Germanshepherdsmum

So precisely what should Sunak have done to satisfy all the whingers?

Does that include all the Conservative back benchers who don't like the higher taxes and spending on public services (apart from the fizz drinking, flying ones)?

Sure many of us drink fizz and fly. Even Labour voters.

I think both of those things would be pretty difficult for families on Universal Credit Linclass.

suttonJ

A bit off the point but....how can anyone trust him to understand life at the sharp end, when he poses in £95 sliders (glorified flip-flops). Seems unbelievable that more has not been made of this excess, especially when one remembers the stick that Theresa May had to endure, following her appearance in expensive over the top leather trousers.

He and his wife are worth millions ( or is it billions?). I’ve sure I read that she’s richer than the queen.

kwest

Am I alone in thinking that this government just wants all old people to be dead as soon as possible? There was not a single mention of us in the budget. When the weather really turns and our council tax increases and food becomes scarce and expensive some older people will have hard choices to make. Even the Labour response to the budget which was enthusiastically delivered ignored the elderly. I am really annoyed. I have always voted conservative apart from once when I was very cross with them and voted Labour. Now I don't trust either of them and don't think they deserve my vote. I have no idea who might have the interests of the elderly as part of their manifesto.

Not at all.

I have thought it, decided it couldn't be true and then had to think it again kwest.

There will probably be some interesting data at the end of this winter. And then we will hear all about their crocodile tears. However, if you can see that coming and I can see that coming, why on earth are they not getting ahead and doing something about it.

It can only be because they don't care or it is planned.

Mo need to mention personal taxation as that has already been covered: the personal allowance will be frozen until tax year end 2026 and NI contributions will rise for those earning more than £9568 from April 2022. Happy days!

*No need

Most addiction and crime is from those with a "normal' upbringing! Don't assume bad start in life= addiction/crime/violence
IT DOESN'T! the worst thieves/crooks/lawbreakers are from the so called priviledged sectors of society. Pay no tax/never pay credit accounts/ take bonuses and pay hikes despite abismal performance/ get golden boot when they do eventually fail at whatever they have a go at! And their kids snort their ways into industry's dizzy heights using parents little black book of contacts.

It amused me to see the bag of cheap sweets clutched in his sticky little fingers. Especially as he thought he was buying them in Burnley market, when he was actually in Bury (but we're all the same to him, oop north, anyway)
I wonder if he actually ate them?

What this Chancellor has not addressed the ever increasing hole in social care. The British Geriatric Society have posted: We are disappointed that the Government has once again failed (in this Budget) to dedicate money to a sustainable social care solution. We know that older people up and down the country are remaining in hospital because the care they need to return home or transfer to a community setting is simply not available. Delaying discharge from hospital in this way is detrimental to older people’s health and wellbeing, and means the NHS has less capacity to admit people who need acute care or to clear the backlog of people who are waiting for investigations and treatment.
The number of care workers available to both care homes and for home care packages is at exceptionally low levels, hence people being stuck in hospital. Yet care staff are still not classified as skilled workers to enable overseas staff to be recruited to fill this huge need.
None of us can avoid becoming older. How we will spend our final days, months and years is a challenge this government refuses to address to the cost of everyone’s ability to use the NHS.

Quite some chip on your shoulder then Gabrielle. A tree trunk in fact. Would like to see the statistics you’ve presumably researched in order to make that comment. Not sure what that rant has to do with the budget anyway.

Germanshepherdsmum

Quite some chip on your shoulder then Gabrielle. A tree trunk in fact. Would like to see the statistics you’ve presumably researched in order to make that comment. Not sure what that rant has to do with the budget anyway.

Why the personal attack Germanshepherdsmum? You could have asked for evidence and left it at that.

Lincslass

growstuff

Germanshepherdsmum

So precisely what should Sunak have done to satisfy all the whingers?

Does that include all the Conservative back benchers who don't like the higher taxes and spending on public services (apart from the fizz drinking, flying ones)?

Sure many of us drink fizz and fly. Even Labour voters.

The reference was to the reduction in tax for drinks and flying, as I'm sure you know.

PS. Personally, I won't be saving anything because I don't drink alcohol and haven't flown anywhere for over a decade.

Germanshepherdsmum

I don’t crave it-growstuff but complaining about Sunak’s choice of footwear doesn’t answer the question. But it’s always much easier to complain, criticise and make sniping personal comments than to put forward sensible and constructive suggestions.

But there wouldn't be any point. The values of the "critics" of the budget are entirely different from those who can't see it as beyond reproach. There is no such thing as a "good" budget because it depends on a person's core values.

MaizieD

Millbrook

Bizarrely this thread has cheered me up no end - I was beginning to think GransNet was just full of stuck in the mud Tories who thought children should be seen and not heard!! Good to see there are people who have a social conscience, care about future generations, and recognise a bunch of charlatans when they see them

You should follow this forum a bit more often, Millbrook. There are quite a few awful woke lefties* gathered here ?

*or even not so 'lefties'

Or even people who are labelled as "lefties" on the one hand and at the same time get labelled as being upper class twits!

I don’t think anyone has suggested that the budget is beyond reproach growstuff, but so many people are content to grumble rather than saying ‘He could have done X, which would have helped Y’. As I said, moaning is easy but putting forward constructive suggestions less so.

PippaZ perhaps you would care to ask Gabrielle why she made such atrocious accusations of basically all ‘priviledged’ [sic] people, of whom I am probably one but guilty of any of her charges I am not, neither did my son use my contacts or ‘snort his way’ to the professional status he has attained. What she said is pretty foul.