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Forum - Budget reaction?
Budget reaction?
Wed, 24/03/2010 - 11:35 — Mark Williams
Has anything in today's budget made you feel more or less confident about the future of the UK economy? Has the Chancellor said anything that small firms and start-ups should feel pleased about?
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Most people seem to agree that one of the most important ways to reduce the vast givernment debt that this government has run up is to reduce public sector spending. (Office of National Statistics show the UK was in surplus between 1998 and 2001 (the legacy of Ken Clarke's policies) but has had a deficit that has grown every year since under Labour's own policies)
But here's the paradox.....
Reducing the cost of our bloated and inefficient public sector (currently around 6 million employees) essentially means slashing jobs.
So Labour has probably got the Conservatives over the proverbial barrel - claim you'll slash public sector spending and public sector employees won't vote for you as they'll be worried about losing their jobs, or do nothing and nobody will vote for you because you're not addressing the fundamental problem of government debt.
Creek and paddle anyone?
How can anybody believe or trust any politician who fiddles expenses in a monstrous way and then claims that they have done nothing wrong?
The bottom line is that whoever is in Government and whatever they do it is the ordinary working people that foot the bill and so the Budget for me is an irrelevance.
Hi, I unfortunately didn't get to catch the budget live, however did catch the summary later in the evening and have to agree with the earlier comment of hot air. I have watched Mandleson spout about lending to the business community for the last year and have spoke with various people who have come up against a brick wall when trying to obtain assistance from their banks. So all a bit late if you ask me and I will beleive it when I see it. It's more a case of every man for himself in my opinion. And I doubt the alternative of Cameron and Osbourne will make the slightest difference. If they were as good at helping the public and business as they have been at helping themselves we would all be a lot better off.
Cheers John Phoenix24-7 24hr Telephone answering services
I have only dipped in and out of the webchat on the budget today but my impression is that:
* Of course, the gov't has little scope for giveaways, the money is already spent.
* For once (because an election beckons, and because Labour needs to make all the good ideas theirs before the other parties do) the gov't has been listening to SMEs and to influencers such as Doug Richard and his manifesto, indeed the several manifestos that have been pre-emptively published by SME organisations. Hence the (vague!) talk of giving SMEs a bigger slice of public sector procurement, as well as the more mainstream stuff like the rates cut.
* As ever, most of the Budget script is just that, whether it is Darling speaking or Cameron replying, their job is to make their party sound good and the other one bad. I can't get worked up about it. Yes, I personally strongly prefer small gov't too, but on the specific point of the credit crunch and our national debt the Conservatives cannot pretend that they were pushing for stronger bank regulation and capital reserves etc before the crash came as they were pushing for the exact opposite.
That 10% figure for cider - suspiciously tidy, isn't it? Call me a cynic (don't worry, I get it all the time) but surely that's just been thrown in to deflect the public away from the more significant - yet less immediately accessible - detail. I can imagine plenty of grocers' representatives filling the airwaves this evening and railing against this injustice - while the practicalities of, for instance, the £2.5bn set aside for small business to boost skills and innovation are exposed in less high profile media.
Smoke, mirrors, hot air and fudge. Too much jam tomorrow and, quite simply, it is just saving up more gov't debt for future years. The sums just don't add up. V little in it for small businesses (or businesses of any size for that matter).
Unfortunately, Darling is looking towards the business sector to pay for his tax and (over)spend policies without the public sector taking any pain. This level of debt could easily take a generation to pay back. Remember 1979? I do, and it wasn't pleasant - and here we go all over again!
Surely the time has come to look at how 'small government' can run the country and bring a sharp halt to the 13-year-long gov't employment scheme that this gov't has made us all foot the bill for?
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