What's in the Budget?
Well as
ConHome
notes, pretty much the whole thing has been leaked:Darling to freeze income bands in 'stealth tax' -Telegraph
Darling is today expected to steal another flagship Tory policy by scrapping stamp duty on homes worth up to £250,000 -Daily Mail
"Drivers will be clobbered with a 1p increase on the price of a litre of unleaded or diesel next month. They will face a further hike of 1p in October and a final 0.76p by the end of the year." -The Sun
Nuclear and wind power will be at heart of Alistair Darling’s Budget -Times
There will be "new bank taxes" -FT
The Budget will involve a new legal obligation for banks and building societies to offer a basic bank account -FT
"Drinkers will be clobbered with a 10 per cent hike in the cost of cider. All other alcoholic drinks will go up by two per cent. Smokers will be hit by a one per cent rise in the cost of a packet of cigarettes and tobacco." -The Sun
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5 comments:
I thought Bercow was going to crack down on all this leaking.
It's fucking annoying, every day announcements are bookended by Today and PM beginning stories with "The Minister will tell the House" and "The Minister has told the House". (Third on the list is "Researchers for charity X claim to have proved banning Y will makes us all live 50 years longer")
It really shouldn't be allowed, it gives the government the opportunity to get their version of the story out first and the one who provides the first analysis sets the agenda. Most of all though it's just annoying, what's the point of a news story telling us what might happen later today?
Why am I reminded of Nero's fiddle recital as Rome burned ?
Not so long ago ANY leak of budget information was regarded as a sacking/resigning issue. Even actionable by my learned friends.
And quite right too.
What an utter omni-shambles these incompetent, inept and clueless arseholes have made of it all.
Yours, in despair,
Stepney.
What is truly upsetting is that Mr. Darling just missed a great opportunity to cut Trident and save £97bn from being wasted on nuclear weapons over the next years.
I'm not sure I'd agreed that £97bn will be 'wasted' on nuclear weapons, but it's certainly a lot of money and there are much higher priorities for us to spend the money on - especially within the defence budget.