Vocal Voices

Now that all is known it looks very much like a socialist style budget delivered by Conservatives. Quite frankly it had to happen.

The combination of Covid, Ukraine, Brexit and Conservative incompetence made it that way. It is true that it is going to hurt, and for a few years, but if we are really honest with ourselves we will have to admit that we have had it easy for a long while. We have had virtually no inflation and almost non-existent interest rates as well as easy borrowing. Now is time to pay back.

Those of us who have lived through harder times have seen this coming and many of us have prepared for this day by putting something aside - saving for a rainy day. It is those who have spent and borrowed to the max who are going to really feel the pinch, but they were warned! A report the other day said that over six million adults have less then £100 in savings. If anything goes wrong they are in deep trouble as the banks will be looking hard at who to lend to.

Fully agree with all you say.

To my mind, it's a generational thing; those of us hailing from the 50s and 60s were taught the value of money and prudence. Those who came later have had it so much easier in life.
I don't have a great deal of sympathy for those bewailing the fact they now have to forgo that summer holiday in Lanzarotte.
Pretty much all the energy and money-saving tips that are now being trumpeted in the tabloids, well, we practice them already here and have done so for years!

But that said, we have to remember that there will always be the genuinely old and needy; the disabled or chronically ill; those who have (or are going to) lose their jobs through no fault of their own - and there's going to be plenty of the latter as the economy inevitably contracts. Those are the folk we must provide a safety net for, not the so-called "hard-hit middle class".

This is a budget for recession and job losses to fund the treasury. Truss was a budget for economic expansion at the cost of the treasury.

The US FED is now saying that they will need to raise interest rates to between 5% and 7%. Essentially they need to destroy any economic growth and force a recession in order to stop inflation. Notably they're not saying that part. The thing is that central bank interest rates are now another inflationary pressure. The pressure of incoming energy has not dropped and now the pressure of interest rate rises are layered on top. End result? more inflation until something breaks.

The middle income are being wrung out. Yet it was the middle income who voted for Truss. The middle income will not be voting for Sunak. RIP Tories for a decade.

After the financial crisis I finally managed to impress on Mrs S that putting away money was a priority. She has listened and if things go TU I will at least have funds to keep going for a few years.

Those caught in the central bank and central government driven recessions though??? Feel sorry for them.

Well said Os.

Workingman wrote: It is those who have spent and borrowed to the max who are going to really feel the pinch.

Yes. When I heard of the amount of money some people were borrowing to get their five bedroom detached house I used to wince.

But the only thing they have ever known is cheaap money. A £300,000 mortgage might be manageable on a 2% interest rate, but if the rate goes up to 6%, 7%?

I remember a rate of 15% in the late 70's early 80's.

As for the budget, I hate it; and I absolutely loathe the eternally smirking Jeremy Hunt. There are other things that the government could do besides loading tax onto people.
Cancel HS2. This white elephant (which it is now admitted will cost more than anything it will ever deliver) seems untouchable. Why? Sunk costs? Sell the land and property already purchased by HS2 and that's a lot of your sunk costs sorted.
Windfall tax on the oil companies.
Cancel foreign aid.


But no. Just wallop the poor sods who are working.
To me it seems deliberate.

We now seem to have two identical parties, Conservative and Labour. Neither seem to stand for anything any more. The Tories punish small business, love mass immigration, care nothing for the countryside and put taxes up to a 70 year high. This is identical to Labour, in fact it's worse than Labour.

We are being punished for Sunak's actions. Borrowing £400-500 biillion is what has done this. His decision. The much blamed Liz Truss mini budget was never enacted, that's got nothing to do with anything. You can't pay the country to sit at home for two years, pay them for doing it and then expect a good result.

I agree with what you say Cromwell. Starting with the mess we are in. First of all I blame China who are culpable for unleashing the virus worldwide and keeping it quiet for longer than necessary. Next Rishi Sunak, who was indeed very free with taxpayers money during COVID, paying people to stay at home for months on end, and was giving half price meals to all and sundry really necessary?. It all has to be paid back, including from many low paid workers such as supermarket staff who continued in work and did not benefit from furlough. It was probably a case of blind panic with the PPI equipment as it was in short supply but many individuals made a great deal of money with the supply of PPI. Again, money wasted which has to be paid back by taxpayers through no fault of their own. Watching the news yesterday, apparently the government wanted to take over a 5* luxury hotel in Kent to house immigrants. They offered to pay of course, but the hotel owner refused their offer. He wanted to run the hotel as per usual for weddings etc., as it is asset for local people. Again, millions of pounds of taxpayers money spent on housing illegal immigrants with no end to the problem in sight.

Well said medsacc I agree entirely

It depends what your view of the current inflationary situation is.

My take is that government responses can be like a surfer surfing a big wave. You can ride high, near the top and retain both balance and the ability to step back over the top and pick up the next wave.

On the other hand you can surf the slope close to the bottom, always looking over your shoulder for the wave to come crashing down on you, working 5 times as hard for no particular gain but looking good to everyone. Hoping to tunnel out and not crap out under a thousand tons of water.

For me Truss was the former and Sunak is the latter. The wave is inflation which is currently just like the huge wave. Nothing you can do about it, just surf it as best you can.