My Thoughts On The 2011 Budget

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According to the budget calculator, I will be £90.66 a year better off.  I wonder if this ever happened when Labour were in charge?!

I would hope by now that I don’t need to explain why we are in a financial mess…if I just mention the name “Gordon” that should do.  We still have a huge debt, it isn’t going down – the amount that we add to it every year as per the deficit just isn’t getting any bigger now (give or take).  Eventually it should reduce to zero.  Which will still mean that even at the end of this parliament in 2015 we will still have a massive debt.  Although inflation of 4.4% and growing is eating away at the value of the debt – I wonder if this is the real reason the Bank of England are effectively ignoring inflation by not raising interest rates like they usually would with rising inflation?

The really good news for me was the extra cuts in corporation tax.  You may wonder why we would want to tax businesses less – but in theory this should attract more world-wide corporations to set up their tax-paying head-quarters in the UK, and of course, employ people.  Already one company has suggested it is now thinking of moving from Dublin to UK.

Of course, most people will focus on the 1p cut in fuel duty (I was expecting this as there were quite a few hints from David Cameron in parliament that I had picked up on in responses to questions about fuel duty) – this might seem small fish but combined with scrapping the plan inherited from the previous Labour government of 1p above inflation fuel duty escalator (that would have been 5p!) until 2015 and the usual inflation increase has been scrapped full stop, this is quite significant.

I also heard that coal miners are having their tax-free coal taken away from them.  Maggie will be proud of young David.

The response from Ed Milliband (he is the leader of the Labour party now for those not following), was absolutely so negative and pathetic.

I remain hopeful of the future as long as this government remains in charge.  The economic ship has stopped rocking, we are trying to encourage private investment and there is a ridiculous amount of sensible reform going ahead across most government departments.

There are of course risks; increasing inflation, oil shock potential through Middle East unrest (though we are in a far better place than previous oil shocks in the 1970’s) and selfish mass trade union strikes are all potentially damaging.

On the bright side, I do think GDP growth might be higher than the 1.7% expected this year, I think we may be pleasantly surprised.

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