Quote Originally Posted by On Balance View Post
Not going to worry about the budget to much, I can?t change it. Not sure anyone can or will, at least in the short term. There is not one party out there that has the ability to change things. We want more spent on defence etc. the roads are in a mess, environmental issues with rivers and none one is grasping the underlying issues. There are so many issues that are wrong it does not bear thinking about.

The lower paid will likely take the brunt of it. There are already so many living below the poverty line it is shocking in this day and age. Who would want to be a politician. Not me.
It would be nice if we had a government, any government that prioritised growth.

I read somewhere that this budget is expected to cost us anything up to 0.5% of our GDP. Why?

We smash higher earners and businesses, but long term this doesn't trickle down to the poorest in society. The high earners leave and business becomes uncompetitive in this country.

A long term vision would be to try and increase average wages, to promote foreign companies investing in the UK, to incentivise SME businesses and entrepreneurs.

Does increasing NI contributions on employers do this? Nope.

Unfortunately, our prominent political parties put business growth right at the back of their agenda. And yes, I include Reform in that too. They are much more concerned about being voted in at the next election, or fighting for their political survival (as Starmer is apparently doing right now). This is all a cycle and means the country just progressively becomes poorer.

We lost 277k people last year to emigration. Let's be honest, they're probably the higher earners. And what is keeping them here? Move abroad and there is less crime, better weather and far less tax. Their standard of living will increase. Its almost a win-win all round.