Osborne’s class spite wrapped in spin will feed a backlash

The budget is a cynical one-nation fraud. The reality is a huge transfer of resources from poor to rich

It’s a long-established Tory tradition to play their most outrageous cards as soon as possible after winning an election: impose the most savage cuts and stuff the pockets of their friends without restraint. Margaret Thatcher could barely contain herself in 1979, abolishing exchange controls and cutting the top rate of tax for the wealthiest from 83% to 60% a month after coming to power. Her chancellor, Nigel Lawson, hacked it back again to 40% in his first post-election budget in 1988, fuelling boom and bust in the process. And George Osborne unveiled his calamitous programme of cuts, tax breaks for the rich and tax rises for the poor the month after the 2010 election.

That halted economic recovery and eventually had him booed out of the Olympic stadium. It was only by calling a temporary halt to austerity and pumping up the housing market that he was able to rescue his reputation and lay the ground for the upturn that saved his and David Cameron’s bacon last month.

But he was at it again today in the first fully Conservative budget for a generation: inheritance tax is to be abolished on homes worth up to £1m and corporation tax on company profits is to be slashed further, while benefits and tax credits for the sick, large families, the working poor and the young are to be cut or ditched altogether.

But this time he has learned his lesson, and the class spite at the heart of an austerity package the chancellor declared would be the basis of a “new settlement” came wrapped in a one-nation package of spin, political cross-dressing and sleight of hand.

Now his omnishambles days are behind him, Osborne has developed a reputation as something of a political wizard. And his coup de grace today – an increase in the minimum wage, dressed up as a living wage and cynically undercut by a full-frontal attack on tax credits – was immediately hailed as a masterstroke that cemented the Conservatives in the centre ground in their new guise as “the party of working people”.

What would otherwise seem little more than a bizarre pose is helped by the prostrate state of the official opposition. Labour’s acting leader, Harriet Harman, today assured the chancellor that her party would be “grown up and constructive” and was in fact up for all manner of cuts itself.

Those include the benefits cap, which punishes children born into large families and is now to be reduced still further. “Hardworking families”, lionised by Tory and Labour politicians, are the ones who will be paying the continuing cost of the bankers’ crash and David Cameron and Osborne’s half-cocked deficit-reduction programme.

More than £12bn is being cut from working age benefits and tax credits. A family with one earner on average earnings stands to lose over £2,000 in tax credits. Someone on employment and support allowance registered as sick will be £30 a week worse off. Tax credit cuts, which will hit 3 million families, mean taking money from cleaners, care workers and supermarket checkout staff.

That cash has been used to subsidise the low-paid, insecure jobs that have multiplied as the share of wages in national income has fallen, just as housing benefit fills the pockets of private landlords. A serious boost to the minimum wage would help, especially if it was actually enforced. But increasing it by 7% with one hand, which is what has been announced for next year, while making deeper cuts in working age benefits with the other, is simply a political fraud.

Rebadging it as a living wage, currently above Osborne’s planned rate, doubles the scam. If the government were seriously interested in boosting wages, it would be encouraging trade unionism and collective bargaining. Instead, ministers are going to cut public sector pay in real terms year after year and raise the legal bar for industrial action to the point where strikes will be effectively outlawed in public services.

What has in fact been unveiled this week is a huge transfer of resources from the poor to the rich. While billions are handed to the corporate sector, and 26,000 wealthy families get an extra £940m from the inheritance tax cut, low-paid workers will be picking up the bill with lost tax credits and benefits.

The Conservatives point to tax threshold increases as an anti-poverty measure, though the 6 million lowest-paid pay no income tax, and most of the benefit goes to higher earners. Nor does Osborne borrowing Ed Miliband’s policies on non-doms, buy-to-let or training levies remotely mean “we’re all in this together”.

They’re pragmatic measures, amply compensated by the main business of tax and benefit cuts. As the Guardian reportedtoday, the government presides over an internationally lavish corporate welfare and subsidy regime, worth an estimated £93bn a year – more than the entire budget deficit, even though corporate investment levels are dire. All that is without the still unspecified cuts to unprotected government departments, which will also hit the worst-off hardest.

The reason for this savagery is that, contrary to their incessant claims that their long-term plan is working, five years of Osbornomics has been an outright failure, even in its own terms. The chancellor promised to wipe out the deficit in one parliament. Now he’s had to postpone his goal of a surplus for yet another year for fear of repeating the growth-strangling impact of his 2010-11 cuts, and rely on the largest sale of public assets ever to fill the gap.

That’s after presiding over the weakest recovery on record, far behind his own forecasts of five years ago, and a disastrous productivity performance - predicted by the Office for Budget Responsibility to go on getting worse for years. That this is regarded as any kind of success story is only possible because of a pliant media and a political class in thrall to City-dictated austerity.

What Cameron and Osborne have succeeded in doing is set us on course for US-style levels of public spending, and loaded the costs of a continuing crisis on to the backs of those least able to shoulder the burden – while dressing it up as an even-handed necessity, and convincing Labour leaders to dance to their tune on the back of 37% of the vote. That’s what the chancellor means by a “new settlement”. How long any such settlement will be accepted, as Europe is demonstrating, is another matter.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/08/osborne-class-spite-spin-backlash-budget-cynical-one-nation-fraud

The fraud of the £9 'Liviing Wage' by 2020, when it's be calculated it needs to be £10 NOW, by 2020 £9 will be worthless.

The People's Assemblies Against Austerity are springing up all over the country, made up of many political parties, people of no party, independents, your average Joe in the street. This Government is in for a shock.

oooooh...civil unrest

I smell opportunity,,,,,

victorismyhero wrote:oooooh...civil unrest

I smell opportunity,,,,,

LOL, Up The Revolution!!!!!!!!! And it ain't a joke this time.

sassy wrote:

victorismyhero wrote:oooooh...civil unrest

I smell opportunity,,,,,

LOL, Up The Revolution!!!!!!!!!   And it ain't a joke this time.

what you going to do sassy...bash him with yer brolly??

Or maybe

sassy osborne

see...even got the handbags the right colour

victorismyhero wrote:

sassy wrote:

LOL, Up The Revolution!!!!!!!!!   And it ain't a joke this time.

what you going to do sassy...bash him with yer brolly??

No honey, not me, unfortunately even marching would be a bit beyond me now, but groups are springing up all over, and talking to people who are doing the organising The People's Assembly against Austerity, my eldest being one, there is so much rage about what is happening that everyone against this government are banding together, from Greens, the disabled, Labour, Lib Dems, as I said, those normally not political, the pissed off, and boy are they pissed off.

A gentle way to start, but it's starting

Budget 2015 live: Protesters pelt Downing Street with balls

Anti-cuts groups pelted Downing Street with balls in protest against austerity, as Chancellor George Osborne delivered his first all-Tory Budget.

The protesters, who are opposed to expected cuts to disability services and tax credits, then marched to Westminster Bridge, where they completely blocked traffic.

Police persuaded the protesters to move to Parliament Square, where they again kept traffic stationary with a huge banner bearing their slogan “£ballstothebudget”.





The People's Assembly are gaining members hand over fist.

victorismyhero wrote:see...even got the handbags the right colour

If I could get to him, I'd shove my walking pole up his nose so he couldn't put anymore cocaine in it!

you would lose it

the vacuum would suck it in

there is a lot of empty space in there

victorismyhero wrote:you would lose it

the vacuum would suck it in

there is a lot of empty space in there

How true LOL

Do we really think a backlash will happen?
It sometimes feels the people of this country haven't got a fight left in them

I hope there is a fight back because there are people facing the most terrible hardship. Its a disgrace.

Well take heart a bit, because I can assure you there is a huge number of groups getting together who are determined to do something about it, from every area, and they ain't gonna stop.

sassy wrote:Well take heart a bit, because I can assure you there is a huge number of groups getting together who are determined to do something about it, from every area, and they ain't gonna stop.

Have to say just looked at the assembly website. Some good stuff there. Liverpool area is surprisingly quiet. But there is a day of civil disobedience planned and that is right up my street!

Made up of people from all walks of life. Eldest taken over now, she was on the megaphone at a protest yesterday.

Have to say that budget - especially the child tax credits - was harsh.

Wonder if the price of coke has stayed the same...?

I thought it was sick when IDS was laughing and showing extreme excitement when the minimum wage was announced , what was that all about then ?

Was he really excited at the thought of all the poor people being punished .

IDS was probably high too lol

He was excited by the £9 an hour statement,nothing else!

nicko wrote:He was excited by the £9 an hour statement,nothing else!

IDS is like the undead
Vile creature

nicko wrote:He was excited by the £9 an hour statement,nothing else!

Why would anyone get excited by that. The real 'living wage' has been calculated as more than that in London now, and will not come in until 2020, by which time the real 'living wage' will be so much more.

Manipulation again and sad to see how people fall for it.

As for IDS, he's absolutely disgusting.

More lefties causing trouble when they don't get their own way...



You forgot to mention the increase in personal tax allowance and the rising of minimum wage to £9 per hour by 2020!!!


We need a much smaller state and A state that let's us keep more of the money we earn.


I'm still waiting for the promised bonfire of the quangos that cost us around £100 billion a year and immigration brought down to tens of thousands!!!

The living wage is £9
The minimum is £7 something

Big difference

Min wage is less than that for under 21...


https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates



Raising it to £9 will give millions of people a pay rise and meaning they are less dependent on in work benefits.


But let's not forget that mass immigration is responsible for driving up costs of living and holding down wages in the first place.

National minium wage NOW is £6.50, due to go up in October.

Recommended calculated National Living Wage NOW is £7.85 UK rate, £9.15 London.  

£9 BY 2020, don't make me laugh, it will be worth peanuts and is NOT a National Living Wage, which by that time will be calculated much higher, but a rebranded conservativespeak minimum wage.


Now Tommy, let's get rid of the state for YOU.  Let's have no doctors or nurses for Tommy, no teachers for his children and grandchildren, no social care when he gets old, no refuse workers to take away his rubbish, no testers for when his grandchildren want to take their driving test, etc etc etc.  Stupid fool.

Did I advocate the removal of any of those things sassy...!?


I don't think I did... you Are just making things up again...



Min wage is lower than that for younger people.


LAbour only promised to raise it to £8 by 2020...

Yep, but they were also going to use government contracts to promote the Living Wage, which is much higher, and get firms to sign up to it. Firms are already signed up because of it.

http://www.livingwage.org.uk/employers

The Cons have no such plans, and by calling the £9 the living wage, which it isn't, they will put other employers off paying the REAL living wage. I know it's complicated Tommy, but try and follow it

Of course Tory want firms to pay more so the state doesn't have to hand out so much in benefits paid for by other working people...


Do try to keep up sassy...

Rubbish, because they will not be backing the REAL living wage, people will be poorer. Don't you know slight of hand when you see it Tommy?

Tommy Monk wrote:Did I advocate the removal of any of those things sassy...!?


I don't think I did... you Are just making things up again...



Min wage is lower than that for younger people.


LAbour only promised to raise it to £8 by 2020...

Yeah but were they imposing the bedroom tax and swingeing cuts to benefits
at the same time. This £9 minimum wage is a con, giving it with one hand and taking it away with the other.

It's called rebalancing and long overdue...


You can't have people better off on benefits than those working and paying for It...

Most people on benefits ARE working, or didn't you realise?

PLUS if someone is born extremely disabled and they need more money to live some sort of decent life, I, and every single person I know, would not begrudge them a penny of it.

This is what I've been saying about child tax credits - you only get them if you're working so why are people begrudging others the choice of however many children they want?

eddie wrote:This is what I've been saying about child tax credits - you only get them if you're working so why are people begrudging others the choice of however many children they want?

Because they love to tell everyone else what they should be doing? And they are just naturally miserable?

Tommy Monk wrote:It's called rebalancing and long overdue...


You can't have people better off on benefits than those working and paying for It...

Days of benefit claimants living high on the hog are long gone.
Also by far the worst off are those in work on low pay

I mean I sometimes see those programmes that are called "68 kids and counting" or whatever and I do think....hmmmm, slow down love, surely you cannot devote your time to them all??

But we are only taking three or four kids here? Why should one not be allowed to get tax credits for the third? It's bloody unfair actually!

My mum was saying yesterday, whilst we watched the budget, in her day you didn't get child benefit for the first child but you did for any subsequent children?!
I said "That's almost like saying the first is irrelevant!"

And now they're saying it about the third, fourth, fifth...

well it dont actually matter much

either the tax credit is paid as an indirect subsidy to employers OR they pay a living wage and get tax incentives to do so...

everyone else ends up paying for it either way

The BEST to hope for is that a grexit destroys the banking system and the whole bloody shebang collapses...

then maybe we can start again....

Nems wrote:Do we really think a backlash will happen?
It sometimes feels the people of this country haven't got a fight left in them

I hope there is a fight back because there are people facing the most terrible hardship. Its a disgrace.

I feel the same i hear people really complaining and yet they aren't doing anything about it .

If we were French we would!

There have been loads of Anti Austerity events and there are loads more planned, but I think we should take a leaf out of the book the French use Eddie, they really now how to protest, and lord help anyone who tries to say it is not their right to do so.

sassy wrote:There have been loads of Anti Austerity events and there are loads more planned, but I think we should take a leaf out of the book the French use Eddie, they really now how to protest, and lord help anyone who tries to say it is not their right to do so.

Yes I know! Did you see the recent taxi vs uber cars protest? I have a vested interest in seeing how that panned out as its affecting my other half's taxi trade ATM

Anyway the'point is, they just went for it! And yes, it's not always the way, but boy, did they get heard!! They made the news here yet the taxi protest in London, last Tuesday...did not.

Cameron is taking backhanders from uber over here. It's sickening

eddie wrote:

sassy wrote:There have been loads of Anti Austerity events and there are loads more planned, but I think we should take a leaf out of the book the French use Eddie, they really now how to protest, and lord help anyone who tries to say it is not their right to do so.

Yes I know! Did you see the recent taxi vs uber cars protest? I have a vested interest in seeing how that panned out as its affecting my other half's taxi trade ATM

Anyway the'point is, they just went for it! And yes, it's not always the way, but boy, did they get heard!! They made the news here yet the taxi protest in London, last Tuesday...did not.

Cameron is taking backhanders from uber over here. It's sickening

Agree, we have to learn to stop being polite. Being polite never gets you anywhere. The RW will talk about protesting scum etc, let them, they have put people down long enough.

Trouble is too many people are too scared or too numb or lazy to actually get up off their backsides to do anything!
Eastenders is far more important!

eddie wrote:Trouble is too many people are too scared or too numb or lazy to actually get up off their backsides to do anything!
Eastenders is far more important!

Get your point, but I honestly think that is changing fast now, I certainly hope so.

I hope so too.

For my part, in the taxi war, I've joined a very proactive group.
Demonstration on 31st July

I hope this country wakes up soon

sassy wrote:PLUS if someone is born extremely disabled and they need more money to live some sort of decent life, I, and every single person I know, would not begrudge them a penny of it.

Neither would I..0different argument... this is going to stop so many people getting unnecessary and undeserved benefits...

eddie wrote:This is what I've been saying about child tax credits - you only get them if you're working so why are people begrudging others the choice of however many children they want?

You should only have as many as you want to pay for... not expect everyone else to have to pay for them...

Nems wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:It's called rebalancing and long overdue...


You can't have people better off on benefits than those working and paying for It...

Days of benefit claimants living high on the     hog are long gone.
Also by far the worst off are those in work on low pay

THose worst off should be those not working at all... and if min wage is going to be raised to £9 per hour then those you just mentioned will be much better off!!!


Hopefuly my rate will go up a couple quid an hour too!!!

Lefties have a habit of causing trouble when they don't get their way ruining the country... so they go and smash a load of other stuff up and ruin that instead...

Oh Tommy shush your noise! Whatever whatever!!

Budgets always cause some groups of someone's, somewhere-land, a whole heap of financial worry.
Nothing about lefts or rights or whatnots!