The budget, while an example of just how nasty and spiteful the Labour government is, leaves me largely unscathed. As I’m not employed, that won’t hit me in any way. The winter fuel payment was never going to affect me anyway – in the same way that not having a bus pass will never affect me. I don’t drink or smoke and fuel duty has been left alone. Providing I don’t die or move house, I’ll fly under the radar and get away with it.
That doesn’t make it okay, but as I tend to operate outside the mainstream anyway, it will largely pass me by. I think I realised this all along. Of course, the inevitable rise in inflation will hit me as it will hit us all.
As for Reeves claiming that we voted for change, she ignores the little fact that the collapse in the Tory vote did not mean a shift towards them. They got fewer votes than they did with Corbyn at the helm. So, no, we did not vote for their brand of change, we got it by default. We will have to endure it until the next election when hopefully their vote will collapse in the same way.
Perhaps the new Conservative Leader will launch ‘New Conservative’ with an attractive vision for the future? I know it’s unlikely but ‘steady as she goes’ is not a persuasive argument.
Reform as the ‘new’ main Party might work, but they have a long way to go. As recent governments have found criticising from opposition is far easier than actually doing the job.
Reform (at least Tice) abhors a large section of supporters and wants nothing to do with “All that lot”.
In what way can doing the same crap that the Conservatives did but turned up to eleven be described as change? The only party offering any kind of change was Reform and it was them splitting the Tory vote that put your lot into power. Getting fewer votes that Commie Corbyn does not qualify as an endorsement, a little humility might be appropriate here.
Apart from liking the occasional beer, I’m pretty much in the same boat as you are. Playing my piano and getting creative in my woodwork shop don’t cost me anything.
Humility? From a politician? From a Lefty politician? You’re having a giraffe, aren’t you?
I told them. I told those well-intentioned idiots advocating “tactical voting” to give the Nats a well-deserved kicking that the bastards don’t care about your tactics; all they give a toss about is power. I knew they’d take every single vote as a full-throated endorsement of their dimwit policies. No, not even that: of them, as a party. Throw the manifesto overboard now, because they won, and they are in charge now.
Anyway, it doesn’t directly affect me much either. But by putting up the cost of employing people and investing in capital, it’s going to affect us all.
Only looking at the direct effects is the same error as people who think fuel duty doesn’t affect them because they don’t drive: it affects the price of every single thing you buy. And so will the NI hike, the minimum wage hike, and the CGT hike. The overall tax burden is going up, and we’ll all end up paying for it, one way or another.
She may have broken her promise not to increase taxes for “working people”, but even making it was a foretaste of Reeves’s stupidity. And her party’s belief in ours.
The country needs a good hard deep ass fucking by Labour to change the entitled behaviour of the electorate.
That’s the purpose of “tactical voting”.
Anyone who has gone to the trouble of acquiring marketable skills and earns a decent wage is no longer working class in Labour’s Humpty Dumpty world.
Have you heard about this?
https://platitudes.home.blog/2024/10/31/something-truly-scary-for-halloween/
I didn’t realise that it had been resurrected.
I expected worse from the budget, so i’ve got no real complaints.
Was expecting my old cars to het hammered with fuel duty and punitive VED increases, but its new ICE cars they’ve gone for.
As for hoping to remove Labour next time, Reform’s vote share is going to drop drastically following Tice’s Ratner moment on GB News where he couldn’t hide his disdain/disgust for Tommy Robinsons ‘lot’.
Whatever one thinks personally of Robinson Tice insulted hundreds of thousands possibly millions of those who have respect for Robinson and his cause by calling them ‘his lot’, got news for you Tice old chap it’s Tommy’s lot that saw you lot elected.
Reform were on the rise but (i voted for them to help destroy the fake Conservatives) Farage, Tice, et al keeping schtum about the fate of Peter Lynch (supposed suicide in a prison he should never have been inside), plus Farage chucking Robinson under the bus recently and Tice telling Gerald Ratner hold my beer will see massive withdrawl of goodwill.
Some are saying that Reform should be allowed to make a mistake and it’s better not to split the “right wing” supporters. I’ve some sympathy for that, but better it’s done now so someone else can rise from the ashes of Reform than discover it once they have more clout in parliament (government even).
I’m glad the budget left you alone, but it means that the cost of hiring my drivers will go up again when the minimum wage comes in, adding to the NI increase. That feeds inflation, in a vicious spiral. Notwithstanding that my customers will probably hire less people, what with the workers “rights” bullshit as well. So more unemployment as well. Or at least, less permanent jobs.
And less business for me.
I have never felt that much hate for those scumbags.
The reason I’m flying under the radar is because I’m not employing anyone. It’s the small businesses that have a few employees that will suffer. Large ones are more able to absorb the hit, but the SMEs are in the firing line. This really is a nasty, spiteful budget by those who hate the private sector. In the last 24 hours, inflation is already starting to show its face as reality bites. Anyone with any sense would have seen this coming, but Reeves is a moron. Worse than that, an ideological moron.