This week we had what grown-ups call The Budget which is essentially where important people in London scribble down a few sums on the back of a fag packet (fags didn’t go up you’ll recall so there were packets on hand) and tell the rest of us what pittance we have to live on and how much we owe them for the next year or so. This is good because it allowed millionaire married to a billionaire Richguy Sunshine, known as chancellor, to stand at the despatch box for seemingly hours letting people know how clever he is. Given the abilities of the current crop of government lackeys this is a very small field. Of all the nightmarish mistakes that have been made over the last few months one thing they did get right is the furlough scheme in which many people who might otherwise be starving (and rioting if they had the energy) in the street were kept financially afloat by being given their own money. Government money is tax payer’s money remember. Furlough has now been extended, again, for a few months. You’ll recall that it was due to end ages ago but was kept going prior to second/third waves of virus and second/third periods of lockdown. Prescient, huh? You’d be forgiven for asking if they know something we don’t. That said we are going to have to pay for it. Corporation tax (paid by businesses on of profits) is slated to go up from a ridiculously trivial amount to a slightly less trivial one. Oh and tax thresholds have been frozen rather than keeping line with inflation (so we all lose there). We didn’t see any taxes on those companies who have done quite nicely out of the pandemic, thank you, or on those with cozy relationships with the government such as pest controllers who could suddenly produce PPE. There was very little in forward investment in health and education and nothing for those workers who have literally put their lives on the line during the pandemic like NHS employees. No matter – Richguy has our interests at heart and tough decisions have to be taken dagnabit. It would of course be churlish to voice opinions of doubt when this pandemic – a natural disaster if ever there was one – affects us all regardless of wealth. Apparently.
Anyway debts have to be repaid and given the complete lack of any credible opposition Richguy has the time and (eventually) the money.
