When fuel prices were at their peak, we had the tossers empathising with everyone about the high prices, saying that they understood people were having a tough time so they postponed the fuel duty increase.
This week, they reduce the VAT by 2.5%, but in a very sneaky move increased the fuel duty so that petrol remains at the same price. So now we have the fuel duty increase, sneaked in throught the back door, hoping that people won’t notice, not that we can do a damn thing about it.
They’re frightfully gangsters, and they sure as hell don’t give a monkeys about the people they supposedly represent, all they wanna do is screw us for more and more money for everything, maybe I should just get my pay cheque sent straight to them so they can take all they want and send me the change.
Depite never liking and distrusting Tony Blair and new “Labour” (read Old Fascist) I at first thought Gordon Brown to be a decent Chancellor. What sort of a cupid stunt was I?
Despite his love of words like “prudent” he’s a profligate tax and spend Chancellor of the worst sort. His only contribution to the world of national economics is the “stealth tax”.
Please, can someone explain to me why we are propping up creed of greed banker while letting decent companies go to the wall?
Next. Why are the Government still so enamoured with rip off life /endowment/annuity insurance companies? The only reason they are still solvent and profitable is that they just take the money and reduce there payouts blaming market forces?
I love it when people have a pop at this present government.
When things are tough they try and help yet people still critisize.
If they do nothing they still complain.
How they hell do people think things get paid for?.
However I hope the Tories get in next time with the recession taking hold. They have more experience with them as they caused so many booms and busts in the past, and crippled the country and it’s people on such a regular basis.
Err, Gordon Brown is the PM not the Chancellor, Alistair Darling is the Chancellor now so if you’re going to have a go at anyone then please have a go at the right people…
OK, so what you’re saying is you want the government to lower VAT, therefore saving you money, but leave everything else as it is, so they take less money in taxes but still maintain public services at the same level without the same amount of income to pay for it??
Cigarettes, alcohol and fuel have basically remained at the same price, no increase due to tax rises but the same price as they were before PBR, that means that if you don’t buy those three items/commodities it doesn’t cost you anything more, in theory anyway. So it’s your choice to spend the money on either cigarettes, alcohol or fuel and pay the price, for those people who decide not too buy either it doesn’t cost them anything, seems fairly reasonable, you pay tax on the things that you as an individual choose to buy? (yes I realise it’s a simplistic view but in essence that’s what it comes down too…)
The upshot of all of this is that we are in a recession, it may have been caused by the banks but if the government does nothing to attempt to reduce the impact, whether by propping up the banks or making changes to the tax revenues, we are all screwed and for a very long time!
The world is run by economics, most of which I don’t understand, but what I do know is that if the government take the Tory line and weather the storm with no proactive action then a lot more people will be out of work and a great deal more businesses will go under. The only people who will come up smelling of roses are those with plenty of money to start with, namely Mr Cameron, Osborne and their wealthy friends!
Well, as a courier, I don’t have the luxury of choosing not to buy fuel, as without fuel I can’t work and at the time when fuel prices where at their highest, I was paying up to £150 a WEEK just for petrol, but because of the economic downturn, our rates were getting cut and we were getting paid less per job and less per mile.
and, as an aside, I think you’ll find that in the PBR, duty rates were actually increased on things like Scotch Whisky, which thankfully I don’t drink, so I have the choice not to buy it. With fuel, I don’t have that choice.
You don’t get it Sir Slim, i wasn’t complaining about the cut in VAT, of course its welcome, I was commenting on the underhand way in which they used the rate cut to disguise the rise in fuel duty which they couldn’t get away with earlier this year because there would have been a public outcry.
And strangely, I think you’ll find that everything you buy in the shops is delivered by road, its not put on the shelves by fairies in the night so ultimately delivery costs affect the price you pay.
from 2010 (i think I could have the year wrong) everyone earning over £20k will have to pay an extra £100 NI, also Train fares are going up, so that the governmentt can lower the amount they sub to the trains but you will not see that come off of our taxes will you!!!
it just goats me here we seem to be paying more but the government seem to be paying out less (although now that will be to pay off our debts of which is going to fall to us as well)
I’m afraid I really don’t see how a reduction in VAT is going to make a blind bit of difference.
For people who can afford to spend, a £2.13 reduction on a £100 spend isn’t going to suddenly make them run to the shops and spend more.For those who have little money… their income goes on food which is zero-rated, and often fags where the duty has been increased to cover the reduction in VAT.
Having said that, the tory model for getting a country out of a recession obviously doesn’t work too well as we’ve seen over the years (I too remember the Thatcher years - the woman who stole the dreams of an entire generation).
TBH, no-one has the answers but I do think that once the banks are are up and running again and ripping us all off once more that they should be forced to make some recompense for the mess they have forced the world into.
I too remember the “thatcher years” and also the years before, where the country was going down the pan, maggie may not have been the perfect leader, but she was the leader the country needed at the time! I can well remember being the only person being “allowed” to work on a call-out to a factory where the heating wasn’t working, the union rep was waiting to shut the place down if the temp dropped, yet wouldn’t let the fitters I was with onto the site because they were not in a union! I was allowed to do the job(under supervision) because as an apprentice I was a member of the bleediin students union :w00t: Pressed Steel Fisher at cowley along with the rest of British Leyland was run by the union reps who would close the whole place down on a whim (on one occasion because the woodworkers and steelworkers couldn’t agree on who was going to take a wall down…sigh) if you want to go back to that then fine, count me out!
as to comparing conservative and labour with regard to boom/bust I’m not sure either come out smelling of roses, they both have their faults, but as far as I remember new labour inherited a solid economy that was booming, they have brought us through a boomtime, and left us with a massive debt our children will be paying off! they have got millions off the unemployed register and onto job-seekers allowance, or worse still into the beaurocracy, make do jobs that we pay for, maybe thats better I don’t know but I am sure some of you will.
ps VAT… all the change does is increase admin costs to busines’s at a time they can ill afford it, its a perfect “new labour” move, sounds good doesn’t affect their core voters (at this point) and doesn’t cost the goverment anything to administer, other than the loss in tax, which is minor in relation to the overall cost of goverment spending, and do be sure we WILL pay for it in the future regardless of which party is in power (although I do expect the conservatives,should they get in, to emulate new labour in blaming the previous party for everything that goes wrong for the whole of their term)
they already have by giving shares to the government so we the people can profit from their success…its why barclays have gone abroad for cheap cash rather than use the government and lose their freedom and to be honest so too would I…although I am not so sure the source they have used is the best.
as for the difference between Labour and Tories there are vast differences…the major one being that of freedom…Labour removes these from the people, the Tories should hopefully give it back…BUT…the reality is that once a law is in place its bloody hard to remove…
ANyone that belives this government has done anything that is ultimately for anything other than staying in power is very very misguided…all they are doing is planning how to stay in power not how to save the people (although on this ocasion they are linked to a degree)…saving banks when legitimate companies are going under due to the credit crunch and starvation of cash for all projects is plain nuts…the banks are not making cash available and companies are struggling…and anyone that goes on and on about company directors all being rich cats is just foolish…until you have run your own business committed your whole income and life to succeeding then you simply have no idea what it is like to be a director…
Anarchy bring on anarchy but i want to be in charge…
That would have had more of a chance of stimulating the economy than this paltry VAT cut, which in real terms won’t make a huge difference to consumers.
