The return of Robin Hood? Well no. Not quite. Not yet. Maybe next year?
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Well whadda ya know. After waiting almost two decades for it to happen, there are at long last some real differences starting to appear between the two main British political parties, if only in how they would each manage the country’s finances in recession rather than in sincere ideological terms (both still love the money men, even though they can no longer do no wrong).
Of course as Labour is the party holding onto the public purse right now, its approach to the nation’s apparent financial apocalypse is the only one that matters for the time being, simply because it’s the only party that’s in a position to put words into action. But it’s nevertheless interesting to see what the Tories have to say just in case they do manage to stop their poll lead rapidly disappearing up George Osborne the Shadow Chancellor’s anus as he continues to preach what amounts to the classic Thatcher and Major 1980s/1990s approach to recession: do nothing, don’t give a flying fuck about the suffering of people and disintegration of small businesses, just let the people bleed and let the market lead.
tags: Alistair Darling, budget, Chancellor of the Exchequer, credit crunch, David Cameron, George Osborne, Labour, pre-Budget report, public finances, public spending, tax and spend, Tory, United Kingdom, VATThe UK budget: fudge today, jam tomorrow, same as it ever was
This year’s budget was quite possibly the biggest dollop of meaningless fudge this government has dished up to date. What’s with the talk of encouraging people on low incomes to save, when those who are earning supposedly very good wages are themselves unable to set anything aside? Everything goes on food, household utility bills, travel to work, schooling costs, and mortgages or rent. Not much left after those have all been accounted for.
As for the environment and climate change, there was absolutely nothing in the budget except for the promise of ‘jam tomorrow’ with the emissions reduction target raised from 50 to 80% by 2050–but that year is so far away as to be meaningless to most people living in 2008. I will be 83 in 2050, if I live that long. I think the global crises—note the plural, because I include all the attendant horrors of climate change, including war, crop failures, mass extinctions, and mass migrations of people and animals—will hit before I reach the age of 50, nine years from now. If not sooner.
tags: budget, carbon emissions, climate change, CO2, environment
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