IT"S ALL OVER BAR THE TAX INCREASES

Rachel Reeves - or the current 'No.1 Wicked Witch of Westminster' - delivered her budget two days ago.  As is often the case with these announcements, it's not what is publicly said in Parliament during the 'declaration of intent' but more what has not been mentioned. Policies and changes often remain buried within, awaiting extraction, hence why two days on, news is filtering out regarding various concerns.

Farmers feel aggrieved about the change to inheritance rules, GP's are concerned about the rise in National Insurance contributions and whether it will apply to all or will they be treated as a small business and be exempt from the increases.  The fact remains that for business as a whole, increased NI contributions will lead to lower wage rises.  By reminding us at any opportunity that she was holding to her promise of not raising taxes for 'working people', the Chancellor omitted to say that prices will inevitably rise as costs have to be passed on to the customer.  It is a cycle that takes a lot of breaking without reform and imagination. 

Private schools face the imminent introduction of VAT.  This is no doubt a spiteful way of getting back at a section of society those on the left cannot abide. The irony being that this is the very education that got most MP's to the level of power and influence they have today. This government despises middle England - the South-East in particular - all pensioners that pay their way and those who have worked all their lives and been prudent, saving for a future continually undermined by Labour governments.  By withdrawing the Winter Fuel Allowance for pensioners not on any form of benefit, (see above sentence for details of 'real' working people), Ms. Reeves has alienated a large section of the voting population.  I just hope they remember this budget come the next election.

The £20billion black hole became £40 billion when taking into account money needed for the NHS, infrastructure projects such as getting HS2 into Euston, paying miners a pension top-up and postmasters for their disgusting treatment at the hands of Post Office management in what was one of the greatest cover-ups and injustices this country has ever witnessed.  No-one is denying that we are broke or that the country is socially broken, but it is the way government approaches these decisions that dismays the public at large.  If one accepts that there is such a financial deficit, surely it makes sense to plug the holes where money is being spent on pointless projects (HS2 springs immediately to mind), and traditional support for those who should not receive one pennyworth of help from 'hard working' taxpayers.   The NHS itself is one of the biggest culprits.  Because this country fails to make plans that are carried through, we never truly invest in staff.  We have overseas doctors and nurses employed throughout our hospitals and health centres when we should be trying our own youngsters.  Agency nurses cost an absolute fortune, yet still they flourish and drain our resources.  Once we allowed private healthcare into the NHS, it became a slippery slope of profit over service.

What would an alternative, imaginative budget look like?  Oh that Wicked Witch No.2 - Yvette Cooper - in her role as Home Secretary could have come to the rescue, galloping into the Commons on a white charger, standing in her stirrups and  halting proceedings by declaring 'I have a plan.  It may not be cunning, but it's bloody obvious and will be ever-so-popular with the masses!'.  To shocked anticipation she holds aloft a charter stating that all cross channel ferries have been commandeered and that as she speaks umpteen thousand migrants are being returned to France!  Those involved, she continues include every example of benefit-scrounging flotsam currently held in hotels, ex RAF bases, centres run by private contractors and those hunted down and found working illegally in Chinese restaurants, Thai massage parlours and a lone African homosexual seeking refuge in a West London lock-up.  She awaits her next sentence in order that the jubilation and cheering from all sides of the house can calm itself.  Beaming like a cat that hails from the north-western County of Chester, she adds that the miscreants are being deported as she speaks!  Furthermore, we have stopped payment to the French government as they have been doing bugger-all to deter the small boats and that we will be saving in the region of £20 million a day!  'Hurrah and Hussar' they shout in unison.  And there's more...!  'What's more', (Told you there was more),  'the Government has seized the  assets of the German manufacturers of dinghys and closed the business down at the same time making it illegal to cross the channel without  a passport showing British nationality spanning a fifty-year period, a British driving licence and until they are discontinued,  a Waitrose loyalty card'.  She further announces that due to so many deportations, we no longer need to build as many houses and that the country's 'Green Belt' has been saved for future generations!  To ecstatic cheering she takes a bow before taking her leave.  The Chancellor, cutting a lonely figure and not wishing to be excluded from the accolades bestowed upon her fellow cabinet minister, stutters before tearing up her previous declarations and announces that all pensioners will indeed get their winter fuel allowance reinstated, NI contributions will be decreased by 1.2% and VAT will not be charged on private schools!  

As MP's gaily skip (as opposed to 'gayly skip') back to their constituencies  'True Brits' make their way en-masse to the Kent coast in order to witness the deportations and loudly exclaim with a new-found fervour  'That's right, bugger off back to France, see how much you'll get in benefit from the Froggies!'   All around laugh and cheer before pint glasses clang in unison and happiness and contentment permeates throughout the land.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, we have the American election to look forward to! That'll be fun...