“Autumn Budget Day”

 

“The Day” has arrived: the day of the Autumn Budget. There’ll be tears, but don’t fear: our MSM are kindly preparing us for the worst. Our friendly state propaganda outlet, formerly known as ‘Autie B’, headlined their usual compilation of this morning’s printed front pages thusly: “Newspaper headlines: ‘New age of austerity’ and ‘grin and bear it’” (link). 

Yes, it’s all about that budget and how terrible it’ll be. The DM however informed the readers of their print edition that supermarkets are rationing … eggs. It’s because of ‘bird flu and the war in the Ukraine’. The warning has gone from their online front page, but one’s gotta give the DM their due: they’ve been writing about egg shortages for ten days now. Here’s the list of a search of their pages.

And so, as the nation or rather: the MSM with their hordes of correspondents, waits with bated breath to learn how much more money government is going to grab from us, as we’re being warned about global economic storms, a few items were carefully leaked at the start of the week.

I’ve ‘saved’ them because they provide excellent proof for the government’s strategy to leak something in order to gauge public opinion. If the outcry is too loud, it can be dropped. One of those items is the ‘pension triple lock’ which may or may not stay. Sunak, reported the DT, 

 “[…] said that protecting pensioners during tough economic times was always at the “forefront” of his mind ahead of Thursday’s Autumn Statement. Mr Sunak declined to give a categorical response to questions about whether the triple lock will stay from reporters on the plane to the G20 summit in Bali.” (paywalled link)

Usually, I wouldn’t have bothered bookmarking waffle by this or indeed any other PM. I did so time because the comments were exceedingly vitriolic, attacking pensioners as being fat cats who rob the workers by getting more than their fair share. However, when I looked at this report this morning I found that the comment posts were carefully ‘edited’ by the DT, i.e. a great pruning had taken place. Now there are only about 174 comment posts below that report. On Monday there were already well over 400, most of them nasty attacks, the mildest describing pensioners as being a burden. 

We’ll have to see what Hunt will come up with. Will he be ‘caring’ like his PM, or will he take on board the publicised ‘outcry’ of ‘overburdened workers’? Just remember: the personal allowance has been frozen, so all those pensioners in receipt of an occupational pension, be it ever so small, will progress above that allowance threshold should the state pension be increased. Any ‘caring’ increase will easily be clawed back.

There are more ways of skinning pensioners and workers. Also on Monday the DT reported that local councils will be permitted to raise council taxes by more than 5% ‘without a referendum’ (paywalled link). I’ll just point out that for years council taxes have been abused to fill the black hole, the pension payments for council employees – and I don’t mean the ever fewer actual workers, I mean the “CEOs” and other top managers whose incomes are eye-watering. Now look at the shameless excuse, right at the end of that report (my emphasis):

“But a Treasury source said councils need “more flexibility” to raise money and pointed out that the increases would remain below inflation. The plan to increase council tax was initially rejected over concerns that it would hit the poorest hardest when people are struggling to cope with the cost of living. However, No 10 and No 11 agreed to allow councils to raise more money after deciding to raise benefits and pensions in line with inflation.” (paywalled link)

Aww, there’s the good old ‘Treasury source’ – not even a ‘senior’ one, what is the DT coming to The point is that, whatever ‘rise’ Hunt will hand out to pensioners, it will be clawed back by local councils. Moreover, let’s not forget that those on bennies don’t pay council taxes. Oddly enough,  the comment posts have been left untouched, standing at over 2,200. They’re just a general moan, to allow us peasants to let off steam. 

I wonder why those lefties, howling about the ‘unfair ‘triple lock, seem to be ignorant about the council tax clawbacks which have happened every year. It couldn’t be because they benefit from ‘moar council tax!’, could it? I’ll hold my horses until Hunt’s announcement later today. Meanwhile, the DT came up with another report, headlined:

“Whitehall waste costs taxpayers £14bn as cash squandered on luxury party villa and vegan ice cream – Ahead of Autumn Statement, Telegraph investigation finds frittered away billions that could have covered over half of planned tax rises” (paywalled link)

I’m sure this’ll have maximum effect on Hunt’s budget – not! It’s too late for that. There are however the following quotes, showing that our elected representatives, no matter the colour of their rosettes, are an utter waste of space and indeed of our taxes. Being even-handed, firstly a ‘Tory Voice’:

“Last night, Jacob Rees-Mogg branded the waste as “shameful”. “You cannot reasonably ask taxpayers for money that you then waste… you need to set your budgets on the basis money will be spent efficiently, and therefore you need to raise a lower level of taxation,” he said.” (paywalled link)

Oh Jacob – weren’t you ‘in government’ yourself? Was the work so hard that you couldn’t possibly be aware of that waste, never mind doing something about it? Tut tut. Next, here’s what Labour had to say:

“Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said: “Every pound of taxpayers’ money wasted is a pound that’s not spent either on public and public services or on tax cuts. And that actually does hit the taxpayer in the pocket.” (paywalled link)

What brave sentiment! But wait – shouldn’t the HoC’s Public Accounts Committee have been aware of this waste? It didn’t accumulate in the few weeks after BJ’s premiership, now did it! So what has yon Committee, under a Labour chair, been doing about it? Eff all, innit! Anyone who expects that a new Labour Government will address this issue better think again. There are too many ‘clients’ of either of the two permanent parties benefiting from our enforced largesse. 

And so, as we wait for the real nasties to be presented later today, we can already say with confidence that yes, it’ll be another step forward into neofeudalism, tiny step by tiny step. How else to describe our society where the tax burden pressed out of us becomes larger every year while the ‘apparat’, the public service including the NHS grows year by year as the ‘services’ they provide are reduced, getting more threadbare, while they themselves grab more benefits for themselves. 

I’ll wait for the actual numbers before I’ll write tomorrow about ‘useless eaters’. I’ll just point out that nothing will change, regardless of who is in No 10. After all, they are all in it together, for themselves. We just have to pay.



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