Thursday 18 March 2010

Deficit in a Spin

The Government borrowing for February is out today and the BBC et al have seen fit to say what a wonderful day it is as the numbers are not as bad as expected.

It seems that the number is about £3-4 billion better than was expected. Don;t be fooled though, Jan and Feb 2010 are the WORST EVER borrowing numbers for these months - historically they are months in surplus as tax is paid.

In fact, this is why the number has bounced, the Supertax on bankers bonus's and the late payement by private individuals struggling with the finances.

No doubt there will be crowing in the lefty media about the so called 'improvement'; which is nothing of the sort.

Also Gordon Brown will at this minute be threatening Alistair Darling with a Nokia insertion if he does not write all this saving into some tax giveaways at next weeks budget.

What do you think the pre-election giveaway will be?

15 comments:

John Thomas said...

What about increased expenses and higher pay for poor and impoverished MP's

John Thomas said...

Just kidding ;-)

Nick Drew said...

you had Mr Quango all excited there for a minute JT

Anonymous said...

Good news

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100318/tts-uk-ireland-banks-confirm-ca02f96.html

Old BE said...

If the weather stays like this Darling could set out the most austere budget in British history and Labour could go on to win a landslide.

mark said...

I reckon it will be a huge dollop of cash for every pensioner - via a specified pound reduction in a utility bill (gas, electricity, water etc).

Gordon's one-two punch of near-zero interest rates and high inflation (to come shortly) will be devastating to most pensioners.

The irony of the bribe will be that if there is any money going (which there isn't) then it probably should really go to the pensioners.

Lola said...

I can't see how the tax on bankers bonuses is revenue. Since we - the taxpayer - bailed them out with shed loads surely all the tax they pay is simply a rebate of the tax we've paid so that they can pay tax. Or am I going mad?

Bill Quango MP said...

Anon: You can't go around arresting bankers! Imagine the precedent that it sets.
UK jails are already full to bursting. Where the police put them all?

And ND. Quite. The 1.5% this year is barely sufficient for our needs.
Certainly not sufficient for our wives and 'nieces'.

Mark Wadsworth said...

What Mark says and what Lola says.

The fun bit is that mortgage lending has halved down to £12.5 billion a month and loonie government deficit spending has gone up to £12.5 billion a month.

Coincidence or conspiracy? Is the government just borrowing money to give to banks to lend to the same people who will be paying the tax to repay the loans in future? In which case the loan costs you double.

Steven_L said...

The usual - more tax credits for 'hard working families'.

CityUnslicker said...

Lola - Doublethink, its all the rage everywhere I look.

MW - mortgage lending fallinh, does noting make your cold heart happy? ;o)

I think they may go really populist and delay the cut on the petrol duty rise. Mervyn King will be on the phone demanding that to make his inflation forecasts stand a chance.....

That and some skools you know, after all Ed Balls is holding the Nokia Gordon is threatening to insert.

Old Holborn said...

Speaking as a Leftist Jihadist Black Lesbian myself, I'm off to order a new Toyota

Future Fail Fair. Or something

john miller said...

This government have cause to celebrate rounding errors.

0.1% growth (Yes I know they revised it to 0.3%, but that is still a rounding error and anyway only reflects the fact that the previous months were worse than previously reported)

2% (within the limits of another rounding error) less borrowing than forecast for one month, regardless of the fact that borrowing as a whole is still more than forecast.

Anonymous said...

I did some basic maths on the numbers, and am clearly an idiot because this free money was basically 70 quid out of my pocket, and the overspend in February was 550 quid.

mark said...

I said above that I thought that the Government would seek to bribe the pensioners.

However, based on an article from the Daily Mail (march 19) it would appear that it emerged last night that the upcoming 2.5% inflation adjustment to the pension contrary to expectation won't apply to the various top-ups that people get (saving the government 500 million apparently).

Slapping pensioners in the face like this is a wobbly start to my bribe prediction.