In days of yore, our founder CU would have had a lot to say about the Budget. Any Budget, in fact.
But with this one - has anyone got much to say? Except, as Krishnan Guru-Murthy put it (and I don't ever recall quoting him before) - so where's that "putting an end to 40 years of neo-liberalism", eh?
Shan't be surprised if the BTL comments are thin on the ground this time ...
ND
PS: much more entertaining is the briefing war being waged over Rosebank. Harriet Harman a drill-baby-driller! Who knew? I'm taking names. In circumstances of not much else to talk about in politics this week, it's a lot of fun.
21 comments:
2.6 billion bung to knock £100 off our insane energy bills. £10 billion additional funding for Ukraine.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/further-support-for-ukraine
The Guardian says that the OBR figures for projected tax receipts are based on the assumption that Rosebank goes ahead.
I thought the reversal of the preposterous 27/28 ISA rule was terribly funny.
Otherwise it's a government devoid of ideas. Just as well, given the calibre of "ideas" that shower might come up with.
As seen elsewhere:
Burnham saw we were in a jam - and so made marmalade cheaper.
Then he saw we were in a pickle - and so cut the cost of gherkins
Let's see what happens when he finds out we're fucked!
CH
It was what the Americans call a nothingburger.
Not sure what the point of the £100 is, it isn't going to touch the sides of those in need of help.
Peter Lorre tribute act, James Murray, couldn't even get much mileage out of it in interviews.
CH
Money has to be on a Spring election. Don't rock the boat now, ignore all the problems, chuck a few 'feelgood' scraps at the public, Burnham trying to vibe his way to a defendable poll lead, get 5 more years with a totally revised manifesto that lets them really cut loose on the '40 years of neoliberalism' in the manner they obviously want to. There's no other reason to avoid all the hard decisions now - if the next election really was going to be in 2029 then you have every reason to get the nasties out of the way now and hope those decisions bear fruit in 2 years time.
Actually there is one more reason for a 'don't rock the boat' Budget now, but its not a good one - they know how close to the edge we are sailing and daren't do anything other than hold their breath and hope the danger subsides.
Once upon a time when I found my household budget squeezed I looked around and got a better job.
The tricky question is 'where is Britain's better job?'.
Sure, one can make economies but that merely amounts to robbing Peter to pay Paul. Works for a short while only.
One could cut the Civil Service but there is the redundancy money and at least some of what they do needs to be done. You could cut some of the woke seeming jobs, same problem with added screaming.
Our ballooning SEND and ADHD budgets seem a direct result of outsourcing those functions without just a little thought - some might take the piss.
Then a look around makes one think 'just how useful are these people'. Take vicars, deacons, bishops, Imams and Rabbis and the rest. Could 'easily' do without. Or television presenters, they seem over-personed. In fact there seems an awful lot of fat that could be trimmed. But what about the benefits payments and redundancy - Archbishops are probably expensive to get rid of and make a noise while being shoved out the door. And they still have to be fed and housed.
So where is Britain's 'better job' that isn't a flim flam job.
Plumbing, roofing, electrics. Especially if you combine all these elements eg in solar panels or heat pumps.
Trouble is our schools are staffed by "academic" types and 45% of kids are shoved at university. All the kids I know who skipped uni and did trades are in their own places at 30 with zero debt.
And note which of these two is the featured story in pretty much the entire media.
Anon, 10:23, Rosebank receipts - yep, this feverish briefing & counter-briefing is really something to watch. Graun trying to ratchet up the stakes this morning:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/29/labour-mps-rosebank-oilfield-decision-miatta-fahnbulleh-john-healey: "Angry Labour MPs urge leadership not to overrule energy secretary on Rosebank"
Oooh, don't you very dare!
I'll tell you a mild surprise. If your old Ma dies and leaves you her pension you don't have to pay income tax on the proceeds if she was under 75. I rather expected that historical anomaly to be scrapped. I'm sure there's a Labour interest group somewhere that could use the money.
Que? How do you leave someone a pension - do you mean a pension pot that's not in payment?
This does look remarkably like a pre election budget as Sobers says.
Nothing to rock the boat, or upset anyone with a few scraps thrown in.
Save the nasty budget for Spring. So a March election is my guess, unless something happens. I can't imagine many Labour MPs will be happy. Even with the Right split, I'd imagine a much smaller Labour majority. A lot of useless MPs are likely to lose a job that pays more than anything they could get outside parliament.
If a miracle happens and the Right can sort out their differences over Christmas I imagine Burnham will bottle it.
The obvious mantra is 'more education'. But I seriously wonder if more graduates are really going to help much. How many gigawatt hours is a Jane Austen textual analysis worth, how many gigatonnes of natural gas is a Cambridge sociology department worth. Not so easy finding a use for all those exotic atomic particles either.
Certainly some may generate exportable films and media shows. But how many £ billions worth?
Then the building business is a bit up and down. Some relatives make multi beemer £££ tarting up London housing for the rich. But yer average bricky is dependant on the big building firms and they are driven by how well (badly) the government behaves.
I'm all in favour of saving whales - but not yet. Going overboard on 'Green' seemed a totally dumb move and to lock it into law even dumber. Of course we may be on track to extinction, but I think reality will be a bit slower and wipe out poorer people first. This will suit governments admirably. They will fence off the remaining nice bits for themselves and the better sort of bricky.
"If a miracle happens and the Right can sort out their differences over Christmas I imagine Burnham will bottle it."
The irony is that Burnham's pro-EU stance is the thing most likely to unite the Right. If he were to go into an election with a manifesto pledge to start negotiations with the EU about rejoining, or some similar wording, with another referendum to follow, its the one thing that would probably get the egos on the Right to coalesce into some sort of agreement for a common platform and electoral strategy.
Well when I graduated as an engineer in the mining sector we had a steel industry and a coal industry. Both gone due to green issues. We have exported whole areas of industry, it might be time to look at bringing some of them back.
When the price of oil hit the roof China just dug more coal.
Trouble with bringing back industry (which is imho vital) is that a lot of the learning-by-doing skills which used to be passed on from the old boys to the young uns has been lost, and it'll have to be learned all over again.
"In 1941 works were built at Duston in Northampton to produce roller bearings for the automotive industry, exporting up to 70% of its production to Continental Europe. In 2002 the Duston factory was closed with production moving to Poland."
Do we actually have any large-scale bearing manufacturers in the UK any more? Not sure we do ...
"SKF has significantly reduced its UK manufacturing footprint, most notably with the closure of its Luton factory in late 2023/2024. The Luton site, which had operated for over 100 years as the company's first facility outside Sweden, closed with the loss of 300 jobs as production was consolidated to Poland."
"The historic bearing manufacturing facility in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire—originally established in 1900 as Ransome & Marles and later part of Ransome Hoffmann Pollard (RHP) and NSK UK—faces a proposed closure by March 2027."
"Well when I graduated as an engineer in the mining sector": without wishing to be rude, when was that? 1880? If it was post-war, why oh why? And why didn't you do the sensible thing and move to Australia?
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