Today was Budget Day. Seeing as how government has been leaking the contents of the Budget to the media for the past several weeks, no real big surprises. But I happened to catch the BBC Radio 5 “Drivetime” programme this evening allegedly analysing this latest onslaught on the middle-classes, those cash cows beloved of the Nulabour redistribution of wealth machine. In essence the programme was just one extended sneer with the two presenters believing that surely those who can afford 4×4 cars can afford to pay Darlings’ extra 2k showroom tax. They failed to grasp WHY should they! They also enthusiastically advanced the faux “Green taxes are righteous taxes” argument so beloved of this government, and clapped their little hands in delight at the news that “key-workers” (ie Gordon Brown’s state sector army) would be the beneficiaries of even more largesse care of its masters in power. It is obvious to anyone with half a brain that Labour is in serious financial straits as befalls all good leftist administrations and that its profligacy in growing the State during the Brown era is the core problem, but perhaps expecting the State broadcaster to deal with that is a hope too far?
MOVE OVER DARLING.
Bookmark the permalink.
We all know that if this had been a Tory budget, the BBC would have been foaming at the mouth.
How come the Government can hit the poorest workers yet the leftie media types say nothing?
Could you imagine if Thatcher had shafted the working class like that?
Oh and in all this the BBC fail to mention the massive Council Tax rises for the English.
Not that it should bother me. According to the BBC ready reckoner I’m going to be nearly £600 a year better off.
BBC news 24 described the decision to postpone the 2p per litre increase in tax theft on fuel as “perverse”
Amazing line on Newsnight from Maitlis:
“yes, green taxes… but did they go far enough?”
The myopic ‘tax and spend is good’ viewpoint is astonishing, pathetic, perverse and biased.
It is probably asking too much to expect the BBC to faithfully report the true economic condition of Labour. Socialists know how to spend money earned by others but not create wealth.
Theres BBC bias in the reporting of the budget? All stations reported it, and all included panels,and members of the public etc..etc…etc….
This is a gripe post, thats all.
Andy: Spot on. There isn’t a Government Minister that’s ever had a proper job. All fat useless University educated prats.
Typhoo…go back to your BBC desk.
Martin,
That’s unfair! To fat uselss university educated prats!!
if you dig around the treasury budget PDFs you’ll find the figures – where the removal of the lower 10 per cent band generates more than the lowering of the 22 to 20 per rate.
in other words – the poorest paid in the country got stuffed today. and its never been mentioned by the bbc.
hmm
sneering at an extra £2000 on a 4×4?
Well let them sneer – yes,there isnt room in any city for a 4×4 – they park on kerbs,clog up the school run and traffic management doesnt work its that simple. people can simply walk – i have 4 kids and i get them to school on foot and by bus and save a bloody fortune in car taxes/petrol!
Sorry im sneering and cheering at the stupid 4×4 owners tonight – and yes i am a bus driver!
congestion charge everyhwere PLEASE! Get rid of them blummin cars!
Archduke: Well this point was raised on Drive on 5 lite with some wet female minister. But her argument was that the Government had raised child benefit so that offset the 10% tax band.
But what if you don’t have kids. I’m sure single people are fed up hearing politicians continually refer to “hard working families” as if they are the only people that exist!!!
Single people on low salaries have been totally shafted. Thanks guys. I’m well chuffed as a company car driver who gets his fuel, car tax etc all paid for that my extra £600 per year is being paid by the poor.
That’s what I call Socialism. I might even vote for McBean at the next election 🙂
David Vance: Yes, sorry there are some very bright fat people from Universities. Just none of them in Government or at the BBC.
No general thread, so I’ll post here. BBC doesn’t yet stage “Islamophobia” for cameras (or does it?), like in this attempt by a Dutch TV crew, exposed by another station:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=29251_Media_Malfeasance-_Staging_Islamophobia_in_Holland&only
Thus, the government will have increased our annual tax burden under the guise of greenery by nearly £2.4 billion. And nor is that all. Another £500 million of green taxes, announced in last year’s Budget, are also due to bite in 2010. So the total green tax grab is nearly £3 billion.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2008/03/who-are-masters-now.html
Sorry im sneering and cheering at the stupid 4×4 owners tonight
I’ll declare an interest here before continuing, I drive a 4X4.
I own a 4X4 because I need one, mine goes offroad twice a day, every day.
But that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make me any better than people who don’t actually need a 4X4 but choose to own one because they like the looks, the elevated driving position, or why the hell it is they buy one.
I don’t care if they never use 4 wheel low range and the nearest it ever gets to mud is the grass verge. It’s none of my bloody business.
Just like peoples choice of vehicle isn’t the business of the government to regulate or influence via taxation.
And if it isn’t the governments business, then it most certainly isn’t the business of a fucking bus driver to tell people what they should and shouldn’t drive.
Is it really true that the BBC had commentary from Jane Goody as part of their review of the Budget?
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2008/03/12/should-bbc-politics-be-outsourced-to-one-of-these/
Given the standards of BBC news I can’t say that I would be surprised, but this must surely be a new low in quality.
Re: the Little Green Footballs film of the faked islamophobia.
Some choice comments. My fave is #30:
“I thought women in burqas didn’t want to even talk to men that aren’t relatives. Didn’t a Saudi woman get busted recently for talking to a male co-worker in public coffeehouse?
Maybe the guys that stopped to help her are the ones that hate Muslims – they wanted to get her in trouble. Maybe it is the guys that ignored her that were trying to be helpful.
Whoa – trying to think like a Muslim can really mess with your head.”
Richy: Jade Goody was on “This Week” last week.
Newsnight studio interview on Budget was astonsihing. Nu Labour Minister got free hand to spout nonsence completely unchallenged.
Should there not be a noticable difference between Newsnight and a party political broadcast?
nrg: Why? Since when did any BBC programme come across as anything other than a McLabour party broadcast?
Isn’t Andy Marr McBeans official spokesman?
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/images/2007/10/06/marr.gif
The beeb in conjunction with nulabour wish to get us out of cars,reduce freedom of travel and send us back to third world status…levels the playing field for all the newly arrived nulabour voters.Freedom of movement will have come and gone in one generation if our supposed betters get their way..unless you are travelling half way around the globe to escape oppression and settle here..thats ok apparently.
Of course, it is not the UK Labour Government which controls the UK Budget; it’s the European Union’s Commission.
Brown is in Brussels to beg to get tax changes for the UK, now that he has given away national powers.
So much for national sovereignty!
Mark Mardell has:
“Why the Budget didn’t go as far as Mr. Brown would like”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/
It seems to be going off BBC bias topic but for what its worth
Cameron
You may have some valid points, but to describe 4×4 owners as stupid seems to be stupid. There are arguments about the validity of those vehicles and indeed regarding congestion charging but stupidity or name calling do not help in understanding.
HSLD
I do think peoples choice of vehicle is the business of the government to regulate or influence via taxation.
Why?
Because the government has a duty to ensure road conditions are as safe as possible and that they can perform their function that is transport vehicles and not suffer intolerable congestion.
It may well be that certain vehicles will have to be banned from certain roads (this does already happens with some types of vehicle), but it would be much better if choice could be retained but rationed, and that entails taxation.
It would be particulary true if such taxation monies were used for said purpose – monies from taxing 4x4s spent on road safety, moneys from petrol tax spent on upkeep of the roads and offsetting the bad effects of vehicles.
You use your 4×4 off road, fine thats the point of them.
Due to the driving position they aren’t very suitable for city driving particularly near schools and any amount of libertarian rhetoric will not convince me that they are not an increased hazard to children and so should be discouraged from such areas.
I don’t see the problem at all in using the taxation system to influence behaviour if it can be done in an efficient manner without additional beaurocracy costs and if it doesn’t increase the overall tax burden. In fact it’s probably the best way to manage the risk (not fact die hard socialist conspiracy theorists!!) that climate change and the rest of the environmentalist malarkey might have harmful effects, given the alternative appears to be that we all use compost toilets and live in mud huts.
Unfortunately I’ve not noted any corresponding tax cuts and have zero faith in the government managing anything complicated.
Andrew Neil just had a pretty surreal discussion with Denis McShane on the Daily Politics (no treasury minister would agree to show up). The interview was a non starter because there was not a single figure that Neil could agree with McShane. I don’t really want to bandy about figures – but we all know the basic fiction – er sorry – message – about government triumph and Tory shame. The point is the government can get away with saying anything at all. And if you aren’t a brilliant economist or very knowledgable business person – how is the average person to know any different? To be fair to Neil he tried very hard to inject some real figures into the interview. But time and again the BBC just sit back and allow this propaganda to go out unchallenged.
To top it all the programme ended with schoolkids interviewing leaders of the opposition – Clegg and Cameron were given a quick soundbite sitting around a formal table. But for Gordon the kids went to No.10 and he sat in the middle of two of them on a sofa. Only the kids who interviewed Brown were invited to the studio where they dutifully told the nation what a brilliant bloke Gordon was. This really is my idea of Soviet style hagiography.
I know the BBC has always been bad – but since Gordon Brown came to power there’s been a sinister change of tone. After Iraq they went into overdrive to bash Blair. But with Gordon there’s this appalling new deference. Everything is smoothed over and covered up. From Balls’ shameful heckling during Cameron’s budget speech to Northern Rock, to the dodgy David Abrahams donations, to the Lisbon Treaty. No mention even of all those missing discs. Whatever happened to them? Under Brown all the dirt is washed away along with any sense of what is really happening. In the economy, crime, prisons, immigration, education, health, the EU. No one ever gets to hear the real picture in an open debate. It all gets airbrushed out, and meanwhile the country is fed a diet of Jade Goody giving us her expert opinion on the budget.
That just about sums up the depths to which the BBC has sunk.
Brown’s tax increases don’t even keep up with the budget increases. Add this new burden to inflation and the pound’s slow decline and you get a very unfortunate combination for the British taxpayer.
As others have already pointed out, it’s going to be an even bigger burden on the below-average citizen as well. The staple diet of way too many people (crap lager, crap fast food, and cigarettes) is going to become more and more expensive in the next six months.
Any smokers out there can probably get at least some relief from rolling your own, but get ready for the £4 pint, unless you like real ale and don’t live in the city.
Anyone who’s seen what a mess city-based school-run mums make of our transport system every morning by insisting on driving totally unsuitable vehicles will understand this new taxation.
They are driving vehicles they can’t control on roads which were never built to carry them and stuffing them up for everyone else. Sorry, but I can’t bring myself to feel one iota of sympathy.
People who live in the country and who use their 4x4s for off-road driving, like HSLD, should be excused the new tax because they are using the vehicles for the purpose for which they were intended.
Of course, as BaggieJonathan and Cockney have already pointed out, this government is using it as another stealth tax • it has nothing to do with the environment.
I’m in a position to curse the school run more than many folks, because I live very near the village school.
For whatever reason 4X4’s are far from being mummys vehicle of choice around here, I’d say 80% hatchbackssaloons and 15% people carriers.
I can’t imagine the chaos being any worse if 4×4’s were represented in higher numbers, it’s the sheer selfishness and bloody appalling driving which causes the problems.
I’m counting down my last month in the UK before emigrating, and it will be a blessed relief to get away from a government which feels the need to interfere more and more in peoples lives – and a nation of sheeple who are prepared to put up with it.
( Sheeple insult not aimed at commenters above 🙂 )
HSLD
i apologise about the 4×4 comment if you are a farmer or someone who NEEDS this vehicle for driving across fields – which is what 4×4’s were supposed to be for.
point taken.
BaggieJonathan:
stupid is not correct? come on?
I drive the elderley,the disabled and a lot of people who cant afford a car on my bus, and yes,i think people who drive around brighton in 4×4’s are STUPID -why? because there are 100’s of them clogging up our streets delaying the needy who i drive around – it really is like this – the amount of sunglass wearing mums who will happily park there 4×4 in a bus lane whilst dropping of junior to the pre school playschool is amazing – but of course this is there right i suppose because they have a big car? well no – try telling that to quadraplegics who NEED to get to there doctors on my my bus…and the elderley etc.
Come on – 4×4’s and most cars are not needed at all in big towns and taxing them out of the town is the last resort – i hope this happens – all i care about is the passengers i carry -the disbled,the mums,the elderley – thats it…
I’m counting down my last month in the UK before emigrating….
HSLD | 13.03.08 – 3:30 pm |
Come to Calgary. One of the first things that we bought on arrival in November last year was a great big fuck-off 4X4. Great in the the snow.
Ignoring that this leads with the government’s defence before we find out any criticism…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7293085.stm
This article has the Green Party, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth all lined up to make the same points. Even if you accept the view that “the science is settled” it doesn’t mean “the solution is tax”.
Shouldn’t the BBC balance these statements with an alternative view? How does this reduce global emissions in a meaningful way? Is the economic disadvantage worth it?
My guess is that it just doesn’t occur to the journalist that balance may be required because all the major parties back ‘green’ taxes. So why they did spend time finding campaigners who also support ‘green’ taxes?
To prove I don’t just laugh at the BBC on this issue, here is another example of how not to do it:
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/09/on-the-other-ha.html
Cameron, With respect. by singling out 4×4 you are talking bollocks.
A car is a car. Whether 2 or 4 of its wheels are connected to the engine is immaterial. There are some very frugal 4×4 petrols about & a high proportion are diesils which likely makes them more efficient than your bus. The road footprint of a 4×4 is also little different from any other car. Get a tape measure & measure one. Remember 4×4’s come in lots of sizes from little Rav4’s up to Landcruisers. Just like saloons.
If you’ve got a problem with mums on the school run parking in bus lanes taxing 4×4’s isn’t going to make the slightest differnce. They’ll just park different cars in your lane.
I think the truth is you don’t like 4×4’s because you can’t intimidate the driver in the same way as you can if they’re in a small hatchback. But then I know bus drivers.
“How come the Government can hit the poorest workers yet the leftie media types say nothing?”
Because. to the beebatariat, the working class are like polar bears,they love them to bits but don’t actually want the smelly brutes anywhere near them.Socialism is for the “little people”
The road footprint of a 4×4 is also little different from any other car
The footprint of my Land Rover Defender is probably a fair bit less than some cars.
People carriers are big lumps of things but they never seem to attract the same ire as a 4X4. I think there is something else going on, something based on emotion rather than logic.
Similarly Land Rovers, especially older ones, don’t attract that much flak. Strange when you consider the Series vehicles had the least efficient engines known to mankind. My old ex-military Lightweight drank like Oliver Reed while delivering a pathetic amount of horsepower in comparison to it’s thirst.
Emotion again I reckon.
Anonymous:
im glad you showed your true colours:-
“but i know bus drivers”
says a lot that….you know me? or am i just a rubbish driver blah blah blah.
im not talking bollocks – strange how you havent commented on the fact that people in cars road rage in bus lanes – ive actually had a bloke get out of his silly volvo 4×4 thing and spit at my bus, then walk around to confront me helping a guy in a wheelchair onto the bus,only to say to me “oh god im so sorry mate”
Cars are messing up our cities – i dont have one – ive got 4 kids who i walk to school,i have my shopping delivered -get rid of your car,help society a bit,volunteer with the disbled, donate to charity – dont blame the professional driver for road congestion. Try driving a 42ft double decker for a day and soon wonder why people on there own in cars are spitting and shouting – because they are selfish?
90 people on my bus or 90 cars – “do the math”
“get rid of your car,help society a bit,volunteer with the disbled, donate to charity – dont blame the professional driver for road congestion…” and develop a fondness for non sequitors?
or rather “sequiturs”.
Hugh
dont know what that means mate,im an old south yorks school drop out so not really that well read,but im sure it wasnt sarcasm :-))
Anyone got other ideas how to fight road congestion in major cities ?
Taxation is the only way.Or ban cars,but somehow the cars have got to go. yorks a cool example – brilliant transport and no cars.
Even the C charge worked – i remember the mail saying it wouldnt etc etc
All I know is that it’s time to “short” the pound, and has been for a little while now.
This situation reminds me somewhat of the US economy stalling and dropping during the first couple years of the Bush Administration.
We had robust growth, soaring markets, etc., under Clinton, and then everything dropped later and Bush and Republicans got the blame (and evil bankers stealing from the poor in the usual zero-sum fable, of course). Nobody wanted to admit that all that money that somehow disappeared when the dot-com bubble burst was in fact meaningless paper in the first place. Combine that with the dissolution of Enron and Qualcomm and similar crooks, and the revelation that lots of companies were doing this phony-baloney shell game, and suddenly there isn’t so much joy. That money never really existed in anybody’s pockets – only on paper (I generalize, of course). So when everything “crashed down” it was really more a case of things returning to reality, and stocks and business getting closer to their actual value, instead of ridiculously inflated share prices, etc. But to somebody with a false perspective, it’s shock and horror.
The end result is that everybody forgets that Clinton essentially allowed a free-for-all (surprise), between the dot-com bubble and unsupervised deregulation, allowing business to dodge a lot of bullets that they really should have taken. Instead a different scape-goat is found. The Bush Administration’s profligate spending only helps people forget that.
Now you have Brown who, having allowed some growth without trying, on the backs of tech growth and other economies (not to mention some phony stimulation like selling gold which is now coming back to haunt him), is compounding past errors with current ones.
Many people here have already pointed out that the BBC doesn’t want to remind anyone that Brown was supposedly in charge of the economy for the last ten years as it’s better for them to blame things like nasty bankers and nasty US sub-prime lenders. Housing bubble, what housing bubble? The people complaining that prices were way too high are now complaining that the prices are going down, and grasping at straw men.
So it’s the same sort of finger-pointing, in the hopes that the public either has a very short memory, or never understood what was going on in the first place.
But then I know bus drivers.
Anonymous | 14.03.08 – 1:12 am
You ain’t got no knowledge of bus drivers till you’ve hopped onto a few buses in Israel. Those things can move and the drivers sling them around corners as if they’re riding motorbikes.
Thats gotta be a scary job bryan !
Yeah, but a lot scarier for the passengers.