A Budget for Man With a Van

What a depressing budget from Osborne! Another smoke and mirrors job from the ConDems that gives with one hand while emptying your wallet with the other.

The rise in income tax allowance is welcome, the low paid should never have been in the tax net in the first place, so throwing a few poor folks out is helpful, except it’s such a drop in the ocean when all the other taxes are taken into account and only pays them back for the VAT he already added to the cost of living

Not adding another pre-planned duty rise to petrol was a no-brainer, except that he carefully said it had been deferred, so no doubt he will slide it back with interest when he thinks we aren’t looking. But in any case he has recently added 5 pence a litre to the around 80 pence already taken in duty so are we supposed to be grateful that he hasn’t stolen another one? It’s frightening to think that 5 pence a litre is almost 25 pence a gallon and I can remember in old money when petrol, at 4s 11p per gallon, cost less than that.

The killer section, which he glossed over in a matter of seconds, was the plan for a carbon price. He even sounded proud that the UK was now the first country to set a floor price for carbon. Well of course he is first as most other countries have realised that the econut/IPCC alarmism and renewable energy windmill nonsense is a scam and totally ineffective and as a result have pulled back their plans. Osbourne, presumably spurred on by Huhne the Hopeless, seems to prefer to energy tax and energy ration our country back to third world status.  As a tax it’s ideal for government as it creates a whole new tax platform, hidden from obvious view and taxing every business, every activity and every man, woman and child in society. And of course as we are already forced to pay a ‘renewable levy’ in our electricity bills we instantly have a double taxation.

Then, the sting in the tail, with the vicious rise in tobacco duty.  Having raised the tobacco price to virtually the same level as illegal drugs does this overage schoolboy not realise what will happen? It’s essentially prohibition based on price, and the profits from smuggling will almost certainly draw in more people and probably organised criminals. 

But at least a couple of occasions in his speech raised a smile for me when he was forced to admit he couldn’t do what he wanted because his preferred plan was illegal, in particular the EU rules forbade him from adjusting VAT on petrol. The words ‘petard’, ‘own, ‘by’ ‘his’ and ‘hoist’ come to mind.