Budget Result in a Nutshell

Osborne's budget did not go far enough on the spending cuts side nor in reducing the destructively high rate of fuel duty. He did not go far enough either in cutting the 50p rate but if the stories are true he wanted to reduce the rate to 40p and would have accepted a Mansion Tax in order to get LibDem approval to do so but Cameron vetoed the Mansion Tax and so Osborne agreed to limit the cut to 5p instead. Cameron was right to veto the Mansion Tax leaving the Tories to shave a further 5p off the rate another day. Osborne also reduced Corporation Tax by 1p now and 1p again both next year and the year after. Pensioners will be worse off as will banks, those who buy houses of more than £2million and those who buy houses through offshore companies. Osborne says the government will do something to improve our transport infrastructure and broadband, something to help our science facilities, something by providing enterprise loans to students who want to set up new businesses rather than go to university, something by improving planning regulation and something by introducing four new enterprise zones. The one cut he should have announced was to our contribution to that unelected organisation which holds us back at every turn by introducing more and more regulation without ever having worked out the consequences. You have no doubt guessed which organisation I'm talking about, yes, it's the EU. Apparently when the leader of the recent Chinese delegation to Germany, France and the UK was asked why they had not extended their trip to other countries in the EU he responded by saying that they could learn all they wanted to know about engineering projects in Germany, culture in France and new ideas in the UK. It is good that we are still thought good for new ideas but a pity we are no longer regarded as of the highest calibre in engineering. As to culture I would say that we were the equal of France and that Italy is of equal value too.