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Comments

[chaz]

I was surprised they did not remove the 5% VAT on Gas/Elec,this would have been a better option than the reduction in standard VAT.With retailers slashing prices up to 50% it was not needed,and has created a lot of hassle and extra costs for retailers.It beggars belief that with their armies of economic advisors western govt's did not see this recession coming.In a capitalist global market, booms and recessions are cyclical @ every 10yrs.This one was delayed by so much cheap money and irresponsible lending sloshing about in the economy,so it will be deeper and longer.When we start to move out of this recession,prepare for the next in about 10yrs time, and for some,remember you cannot sustain a celebrity lifestyle on borrowed money.

[Cloud Missing]

This is not a recession it is a correction. We have to suffer it. Harsh but true. We cannot spend our way into debt and then hope to spend our way out.
Gov and Jonny Englishman has borrowed too much. It MUST be paid back. Too many defaulters and someone somewhere still has to pay. Increase industrial output???
Oh yeah that's gone too.

The new 45% rate will bring less than 1 (one) billion pounds per year. But the average deficit will be around 100 (a hundred) billion pounds per year for the next years.

Hence the 45% rate was just a smoke screen, by a unethical government.

And you in the media bought it too.

The British public can understand the difference between 1 and 100. You should have explained it better and more frequently.

[Robert, Scotland]

The 2.5% cut in VAT is preposterous in a period of deflation with sellers discounting their goods in high double digit %s, this is like using a stirrup pump to douse a raging inferno. If this is the best the Treasury whizz Kids can come up with, then I say bring back the abacus or Sir Alex Douglas-Hume's box of matches. The only memorable thing that sticks from this crisis budget is: Higher taxes to come.

[Andrew]

Just the excuse the government have been looking for to raise taxes for higher earners but what else would you expect from a socialist government? Leopards do not change their spots! I'm livid and the worst thing is they appear to be getting away with it!

People should tighten their belts rather than just wishing a recession is going to go away. Just how many people have multiple mobile phone contracts, satellite TV and gym memberships - plenty of savings to be made there but then I guess these are considered 'essentials' now?

[christine]

It will help no-one, best way cancel all standing orders with your bank except mortgage, council tax and insurance, make sure these are covered first, pay all other bills at your bank or post office as the cost of having your bank turn them down can be more than the cost of the bill in the first place.

[Jimmy R]

This is just the usual Labour trick of spending money it hasn't got in order to buy votes knowing full well that somebody else, even if they are from the same party, will have the problem of paying off the debt at some future date. It doesn’t matter to Brown, Darling and Mandelson if future generations are saddled with the debt for many decades to come because they will not be there to take the blame.
In the 60s and 70s it took Labour nearly two decades to bankrupt the Country, this time they have excelled themselves, it only took them one.

[PSK]

What an opportunity this buffoon had to make a really worthwhile impact. Instead they have, true to form, penalised anyone that works hard to earn a decent salary. Surely they could have had a positive on our fuel bills, or our taxation brackets, but no.... instead the greedy hand of the green-eyed-leftie is snaking it's way into our purses. Appalling.

[Sofie]

Please will someone save some of the taxpayers hard earned money by geting rid of public sector non jobs such as the " Street Games Co-ordinater" at 25k pa that was advertised by our local council in the recriuitment section of our local paper. I despair!

[john keating]

As usual the good old NO PERKS PAYE PAYING PRIVATE SECTOR WORKER foots the bill for this government's over spending and waste. What a shambles. This is a full on Financial Crisis, not a 'credit crunch'.

[Brian Herren]

VAT reduction will have no material effect other than to ramp up the debt burden of Government.

Imposing a higher rate of personal taxation is just a sop to left wingers and will not raise much cash

£37Bn of hidden spending cuts yet foreign aid increases

£5Bn per annum of "Assumed efficiencing savings" in terms of public spending counted as a revenue positive

Engaged in two desert wars, Army underfunded yet still spending £4Bn on two aircraft carriers that we will have nothing to fly off of. Obvious really, as they are being built in Scottish Labour. constituencies.

All in all, pathetic and shabby attempts to mislead and buy time until the next election.

Unfit to run a whelk stall

[Douglas W. Tott]

Yet again a Labour chancellor has made a glaring mistake. Mr Darling has admitted that he has made an error with the calculation of the new rate of duty paid on a bottle of whisky. There is little chance of him getting large calculations correct if he cannot manage the small ones

[Robinson]

This is a cynical political budget based on wildly false economic projections.Brown and Darling have totally failed to predict this down turn caused by the reckless bubble they have created in the UK and failed to control. They have destroyed our savings and left us very vulnerable and now propose to tax us out of existence in 2 years time. As breathtakingly incompetent as President Bush's administration whose negligence has been slavishly followed here. How can a party tarnished with such failure be elected here?

[David T]

One problem is, in 2010, when Cameron gets to start running the show, will he be able to reverse these silly provisions and set us on the correct road, or will we be so far on our way into the mire that he has no option to continue and hope to come out the other side? This is only one more step on the way to Gordon's Götterdämmerung!

[AB]

This makes little difference today but impacts tomorrow. Better to focus on boosting companies (especially the smaller ones) and help them employ more people. Also more to encourage and reward innovation. Start by building reassurance in the workplace, confidence in spending will then come back.

It feels like a poor slight of hand. As spending falls and the government makes less from VAT they temporarily shift tax from spending to earning by cutting VAT and increasing national insurance and threats of more taxes to come. This decreases my confidence and stops me spending.

[Braeinsh]

Wouldn't it be useful to have some gold reserves that could be sold at a good price? Alternatively we are in worse shape than Woolworths and MFI and maybe we should go into administration and cancel all our debts.

[Cliff]

The effect of excess debt has made this problem worse so what is Gordon Brown's solution? To encourage more spending by increasing personal and government debt! The politics of the madhouse.

[Chris Jones]

We run a small business that has grown rapidly over the last 2 years to a turnover of £250k. The VAT cut will save my customers 2.5% but next April the Government increases the number of days paid holiday for workers by 4 (around 2% of salary costs). That means that with employers NI etc I will have to increase my prices to customers by - surprise, surprise 2.5%. I doubt that the Chancellor even realises this.

Now we have a PBR so badly prepared that the Chancellor accidentally taxes whisky at double the rate he intended. HMT can't even do basic sums now! What a terrible, terrible shambles.

The fundamental issue for me is that the Government created this mess. They keep blaming it on the US but the UK was just as bad and they did nothing to deal with gross excess in the financial services and housing markets or plan for this downturn. The charitable view is that Prudence was asleep or so busy plotting the downfall of Mr Blair that she missed it. The less charitable view is that she's just grossly incompetent.

The PM keeps presenting this as a 'war' situation where we need to rally behind him and keep in power those with recent experience to see us through. I have news for him. If this is a a war, he's a Chamberlin not a Churchill. He's responsible for this mess. He should go.

[T.K. Ebbage]

Fellow Suckers,

This Kafkaesque Endless Scottish Axis of Evil envelops every facet of an Englishman's hum drum life.

Scots rule OK. They dominate all over English Parliament, radio, Tv,
& every Ministry & Quango, & more.

Now we are to see Happy Hour Banned !
The Non Smoking 24 hr. Bars have become dealing/distribution centres for the NuLabour cocaine/meth/speed/heroin/ecstasy/Culture, Innit ?

The Scots are not very good at running our country these are they?

Time to go home ?

What about the £50 Billion wasted on Asylum Seekers/Detention Centres/Legal Aid & the Crime Waves we are all suffering ? Nary a mention.

No mention of the hundreds of OUR £Billions wasted by endless layers of CRUDDY Councils & inefficient lazy Ministries ?

How many Civil servants/Local Govt. Loafers have lost their Jobs ?

The other Gorilla in the room never mentioned is What state would we have been in without N.Sea Oil ?

Bless the Tories for destroying 5 million Manufacturing jobs.+ (Has Cameron no idea how despised the cretinous M.Thatch is despised by all those who suffered her diktats ? + Closing all the coal mines (200,000 miners productive jobs gone) no bank style bail out for all those industries then ?

The edicts of Ace anarchist Prince Kropotkin seem very appealing & sane in comparison to the chaos now & to come from Comedy Central aka No.10 & the jerks & lunatics we have let run our crazy Orwellian Asylum aka England.

I am very angry & can see a Thailand style civil revolt shaping with politicians & all crooks in suits being hung from lamposts.

Regards
TKE

[Neil Wilson]

What idiot actually thinks a 2.5% cut will persuade people to spend money they have not got?

It will cost my business about £500 to pay our supplier to amend our accounting software! Big help there.

As an individual running a small business, it stinks. Better nothing than this!

[J. Brown]

As a small business owner I have just LOST 1 1/2 % VAT with this. I am on a flat VAT rate and therefore although I am charging customers only 15% from 1st December I was told that I can only cut the flat VAT rate by 1%. So THANKS GORDON BROWN ANOTHER KICK IN THE TEETH FOR SMALL BUSINESSES.

[Dr. John F. Jackson]

The PBR and all of the actions of the government, regardless of the fact that the PM has read a bit of history, has shown one thing clear...rhetoric aside, they have not clue what the hell their doing. This is purely a political move and the idea that the public concern is in the forefront is laughable.

[Dave Stewart]

Brown is like Lewis Carroll's Bellman:

"He had only one notion for crossing the ocean, and that was to tingle his bell."

Borrow your way into a recession and then try to borrow your way out. Get real! Better still: Get out!

[Lorrian Wells]

A terrifying indication of what will happen if labour are re-elected.
They are so completely ineffective at everything they do, spending more money on spin than getting the job done. If I was that useless I would have been fired some time ago.
What will save us from Naked Brown!

[Roy]

This PBR just shows how clueless the government are and are totally out of touch with the man in the street and his/her needs. The British public are now going to be saddled with this governments debts for a considerable time.
To help stimulate the economy and the housing market why did the Chancellor not dispense with "stamp duty" for a period of twelve months.

[David J]

If the cut in VAT actually encourages people to spend, all it will do is help countries like China and other nations we import from, especillay at Christmas. It would be better to help the UK by cutting (not putting up) employers national insurance contributions. Such a cut would help save some of the jobs that will be lost in the recession.

Also I thought we got into this problem because we have been spending and borrowing too much money which we can't pay back. Another spending spree is only going to make this worse; the money will have to be paid back in the end.

[Adrian]

It is just political tinkering to give the impression the government is helping people. The ups and downs of passed economic cycles were more manageable for people because there was more disposable income after tax - the tax take is now so high across the whole fiscal spectrum there is no slack available (dont just think vat and income tax) think NI, CT, Council taxes, IPT, levy's, licences.. you name it the treasurys outstretched hand is everywhere. No need to tinker just get banks to start lending again.

[Derek Furminger]

When will the serial liar Brown "the son of the manse" ever tell the truth. The increase in National Insurance contributions is 4.5% and NOT 0.5% as the rate will increase from 11% to 11.5%. Can't
either he or his dreary accolyte Darling do simple sums?

[J Fred]

Your explanation of the details is no clearer than the Chancellor's

[Terentius]

PBR is the act of a government led by a a man, McBean, who deludes himself that he is a fiscal genius. Boris Johnson summed it up correct. McBean has squandered the 'family silver' and is now gambling on a double or nothing throw of the dice. Put bluntly: A mad man in charge.

[David J]

The tax cuts proposed, if they succeed in increasing spending, will largely go to help China and other nations from which we import most of our goods especially over Christmas. In order to help the UK a better idea would be to cut (not increase) employer national insurance contributions. Such a cut would help to save many jobs which will otherwise be lost.

Another point that seems to have been forgotten is that we got into this mess by spending and borrowing more than we could afford. How does going on another spending spree do anything other than make the situation worse?

[yeoldeagle]

Brown an Darling conspired to make the Hbos takeover. This was done to try and avert the outcome of the Scottish referendum on independance.
If the referendum is positive both Brown and Darling and all other Scottish MP's who sit in Westminster will be out of a job.
Since all the Banks were offered funds why is it necessary for the takeover to continue?

[Andrew]

The number one priority should be to get the banks to start lending again at reasonable interest rates, but they have to make up their losses! This is were the government (sic) should be focussing it's efforts, a rather complex activity, too much for politicians to resolve! Reducing VAT by 2.5% will have little effect. How much will it cost to implement? I expect companies will just keep their prices the same and use the 2.5% to keep their banks off their backs. We then have got to pay this 2.5% back; escalate VAT beyond 17.5%, most likely! Another recession then? Where is the leadership that this country desparately needs?

[isabella]

The banks are sitting on cash they won't lend to each other, to businesses, to mortgage applicants. The banks themselves have flaky business models & regulation/enforcement is a joke. Hiding behind the 'global issue' is abdication of his duty. He should put responsibility and authority together in one body. Instead, he's creating an international bureacratic, lumbering monster that will be out of control.

He's still busy spending. We're all terrified of the impending tax hikes thanks to this PBR.

Meanwhile, the mess with the stock market has decimated private savings and pensions, so of course people are afraid to spend. 21p on a £10 item isn't going to induce anybody to buy at the rate that it will stimulate the economy.

Ho hum.

[PATRICK MAYNARD-SMITH]

If the mooted increase of 1% in VAT would have had such a devastating effect on every man, woman and child living in Britain. How is it that a 2.5% cut will have no effect?

It won't be dramatic, it's not a fire sale, £7.50 off won't make anyone buy a flat screen TV but those that do will have £7.50 to spend on other goods from another business. Sadly the recipient will probably be the banks who will take the opportunity to raise rates.

[Peter]

It is very simple to reduce the tax burden on the poorest - abolish the massively inefficient and expensive tax credit system and increase personal tax allowances to compensate, and then increase them again to make them better off. Many people on low incomes would then pay no tax at all, and not have to find money to pay tax to then claim it back. Because of the huge losses in the tax credit system, this very simple, fair, transparent and honest move would both improve peoples finances and have a net lower cost to the exchequer.

Why does Gordon Brown not do this - simple - he is neither fair, nor transparent, nor honest and cares only for his political cronies, not the poor he claims to champion.

[the niggler]

On 31 December 2009 (New Years Eve for goodness sake) VAT goes up by 2.5%.

Does the Brown one expect all those staff to leave the pub early, where they are enjoying their last cheap pint, to alter every till and every accounting system to reflect the new VAT rate.

Remember it is not an option. You might choose not to increase net prices but the Brown one will want his extra VAT and his VAT henchmen will be checking so you have no choice but to make the alterations.

Does anyone think the Brown one has the slightest idea how to take a leak let alone run anything?

Oops I nearly forgot beer prices didn't go down!!

[Peter Dickinson]

Another budget which adds complexity and administration at the very time when we need less.
What about closing off tax loopholes, abolishing NI (replacing it with us one unified income tax) and scrapping complicated tax credits.
A simple tax system with high tax free allowances and low rates for low earners would be a real incentive for people to work.
What a waste of space Brown and his minions are. After all of the recent good times, there wasn't one tax year in which he paid off debt, grrrrrr.

[Derek Dickens]

The tax incentives are wrong for the lower paid, they should have improved the tax position for them. VAT will make no noticable difference in most spending; planned or realised.

Many people know that borrowing excessive amounts is no way out of debt, either personally or for governments. Creating additional income is the only way and that takes time. This PBR does not achieve that impetus.

It seems that the government is trying to set the economy back to the position it was before the problems with rising house prices etc and with new mortgage loans. A real "head in the sand" approach.

However, it is not clear what (if anything at all) our creditor baliffs will be able to reclaim from our economy by 2012!

AS usual to late to the table and the offerings are all stale. We the people are about to get a real awakening (and massive tax hikes)because of the prolifigate brown and co. Where's the exit door - if only.

[Ian Hodgson]

In terms of business and restoring confidence, I cannot see that the PBR will do anything.At a time like this, cash is undoubtedly king and something should have been done for industry in order to put cash back into the system. It was probably not done because as a nation we cannot afford it but something such as ER NI holiday or making utility services zero rated would have been far more beneficial.
Industry needs a boost and the PBR didn't give it!

[Garth Mathias]

Darling should have cut VAT on gas and electricity bills which would have benefited eveyone.As it is the pathetic reduction in Vat to 15% is totally meaningless,helps no one and adds to the massive debt racked up by this inept and incompetent government.

[BM]

This PBR is a smoke screen hiding the real issues, the next x number of years are going to be hell, the last big one lasted 1989 - 1995 this recession will be the worst in living memory unfortunalty non of the politians from any party have a credible answer, and as always the bankers continue to get away with it!!

[Allan Hight]

a little poem – "The colours of the pre Budget Report"

Red is the colour of our national debt

Rose is the tint of Darling’s glasses

Black is the colour of its delusional assumptions

Grey is the colour of the financial winter

Green is the colour of our naivety

Gold is the colour of the only stuff we can trust

White is the colour of our knuckles

As we hold on, hold on, hold on

[GW]

A series of ill thought out moves by a PM and Chancellor devoid of solutions. The VAT reduction will have minimal, if any, affect on people's purchasing patterns and will cost retail businesses time and money to implement. Fuel duty increases and future tax and NI increases will compound the problem. They want to kick start the economy by taking money away from the people who would be most likely to act as a catalyst to recovery. Yes, good thinking.

[Alun Rowe]

As usual there is nothing in reality to help the small businesses to keep down employment costs which will inevitably lead to more people having to make redundancies and therefore cost the taxpayer more in benefits.

All I can see here is extra administration costs in changing the VAT calculations etc.

[colin owens]

What a shambles! Like it or not the majority of British people want to own their own property. Banks have wasted all our money on risk taking opportunities in USA and having lost the lot have been bailed out by Labour with our money. Any one with half a brain can see that the Government should force the banks to lend up to 95% to first time buyers to get the market moving again. This will encourage builders to continue thus getting tradesmen back to work and having bought a house people will then start purchasing items for their new home thus breathing in a lifeline to the retail sector. Quite simple really but will Brown & Co understand it? - I DOUBT IT

[Bill]

It is the businesses that need the help to ensure they get through the next 2 or 3 years without having to lay off thousands - and there is nothing for them here.
This PBR is nothing more than a political statement with labour saying they reduce taxes and hoping that the ignorant buy it (like Glenrothes did).

[STEVE OLLEY]

VAT at 2.13%- no effect.There are enough desperate prices in the shops to negate any VAT advantage.
Why has the current government consistently believed we could not calculate the actual cost of their tax 'improvements'. Where is the quality of thinking?
Why does everybody (inc Pensioners) believe they should get a budget saving?
let the american car producers go bust; they can then re-organise, and make what people actually want, whilst selling off the private jets.

[Mrs G Galloway]

I was horrified at the externt this government is taking this country into debt. For the next decades all will be paying the price in higher taxes to gert this country on its feet again.
The Government has just pumped billions into the banks and they are saitting on it, I was labour through and through this has shoked me I cannot beleive this is the Labour Party that my father supported hewould b turning in his grave. This is not the Labour party I grew up with, they are nort for the worki9ng /middle classes anymore. I am now quite alarmed atm the state this governiment has got this country into. God Help us.