We keep being told that Gordon Brown has been a brilliant chancellor. It's something that even many of the general mpublic seems to have swallowed. Conservatives should start fighting this ridiculous assertion. Far from being prudent, he has squandered the proceeds of 12 years of econominc growth to the extent that he will have the embarrassment of announcing in Wednesday's budget that the level of taxation is now at its highest ever. Of course, it won't figure in his speech, it will be hidden away in the small print. But the fact remains that in 2009-10 the Chancellor will riase £616 billion in taxes, more than double the level he inherited in 1997 allowing for inflation. This equates to 38.1% of the economy and £10,000 for every person in the country.
What an admission of failure. If the economy was in such good shape he'd be cutting taxes, not increasing them. Hattip News of the World.
Earnings have risen by just 50% over the same period. The bare facts are ugly.
ReplyDeleteBrown will go down as one of the most hated and one of the worst Chancellor's in history when the full facts of his so-called economic miracle become clearer later this year.
ReplyDeleteHis much-lauded (by himself) consecutive sectors of growth have been provided by the release of vast amounts of cheap, easy credit which, much of it "equity release" from the house price bubble which has gone largely on imported goods and inflating the HP bubble even higher; and from taxing, borrowing, and spending by the profligate Chancellor himself.
This has left the UK with record debts and a record trade deficit which now leaves us staring in the face of a house price crash, recession, stagflation, a collapsing currency etc
The debt-fuelled boom is over, now it's time to pay up.
He has achieved a growth rate of 2.5% which, while it is better than most of the old EU countries & slightly above our historic average, has been abysmal compared to China & India 10%, Ireland, Estonia & Russia 7% or the owrld average 5%.
ReplyDeleteThe Tories have allowed him to get away with mentioning only the first part. I suspect this may owe something to reverence for Thatcher's "economic miracle" but apart from anything else, it seems likely that long term world growth capacity is increasing thanks to Moore's law (that computer capacity doubles every 18 months) & the increasing importance of computerisation in ... well everything.
God you lots are muppets. For a start:
ReplyDeleteMORE PEOPLE ARE IN WORK hence more income tax. Businesses are doing extremely well and hence CORPORATION TAX receipts are way up. SALES TAX receipts are way up as we have more disposible income for "LUXURIES" like sanitary protection. The land and housing markets are BOOMING and more us making great capital gains and buying expensive properties with STAMP DUTY on. This aggregated figure with no analysis - not even allowing for Prague Tories earnings point which halves the so-called discrepancy is TORY MUPPETRY.
"This equates to 38.1% of the economy"
ReplyDeleteWhich is quite alot less than under Thatcher as we don't have 3m unemployed.
Chris Paul said...
ReplyDeleteGod you lots are muppets. For a start:...
You're the muppet, soft lad.
Brown's economy is a Ponzi scheme. A pyramid selling scam that's close to collapse.
Ken Clarke put it succinctly a few months ago: "The Government is going to run out of money."
ReplyDeleteWhen that happens they will slam on the brakes, just like Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan. It's what Labour governments do.
If the rich are being taxed a bit more everyone's a winner.
ReplyDeleteIt is clear to anyone with half-a-brain (not Tories obviously) that the economy feels much more healthy than it did after 18 years of your pilaging of the public utilities.
I should point out that in real terms earnings have only risen by about 30%. I wasn't taking (official) inflation into account.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI remember in the old days of Tory budgets, the special edition of the FT would sell out early the next day as accountants and economist bought the pinken to find out what was in the small print of the budget or the red book.
ReplyDeleteThese days there's no point: you only find out about the tax rises when they're implemented later.
eg the £25 vehicle tax rise for "Chelsea Tractors" that actually applied to ALL high performance cars
George Osborne must have heard you Iain:
ReplyDeleteOsborne slams Brown economic record
I agree. Brown should lessen the tax burden on the poor and increase it on the rich.
ReplyDeleteA brilliant Chancellor? There's several million people who'll give you an argument about that. To mention a few - the people who've lost their pensions because of Government advice and the same Government won't compensate them, then there's the people struggling to pay the Council tax - which has more than doubled since Labour came to power.
ReplyDeleteThis man has virtually singlehanded destroyed the best private pension system in the world - but that's OK, his pension is safe; after all, the taxpayer funds it.
Then there's selling off the gold reserves in a kind of fire-damage sale at rock bottom price.........
There's presiding over the highest levels of personal debt ever......
Sorry, too depressed to go on!
anonymous 6.15 PM: You say, "Brown should lessen the tax burden on the poor and increase it on the rich."
ReplyDeleteActually, he should, lessen the tax burden on everyone, but especially the poor.
Thanks to Prague Tory for correction on earnings point. It is still a fact as Parbury says that the economy has grown big style and the take is less as a pc than Maggie's. Dale came over to me place and started shouting the odds on what the tax is being used for. But that's another question. My tax, Iain's tax, Prague Tory's tax has not been doubled by Brown. It is factually completely wrong to say that it is. That's why I say MUPPET. It is sooooo wrong. Iain calls me muppet back, but unfortunately unlike myself has no argument to back it up.
ReplyDeleteTo all the "Gordon is a hero" cheerleaders,
ReplyDeletePerhaps living in the UK, as I suspect you do, you won't have noticed the general reduction in standards of life; it's been a gradual, drip-drip process after all.
I, on the other hand, have the fortune to live overseas and only get back to Britain once or maybe twice a year. For me the changes are easier to spot. Things are grimier and services are worse. This despite the massive increase in the vacuuming of people's wallets.
So where has all the money gone?
The X-million extra "hidden" unemployed tucked away on the disabilities roster must account for some of it. And I suspect the the growth in the "technically employed, but really not working" sector of diversity officers, real nappy officers etc also contributes. Add to that the massive sums the government has squandered on doomed IT systems, huge consulting contracts to "chums" and assorted vanity projects and maybe you'll get the answer.
Far from being prudent, the chancellor has been spending money like a drunken sailor on shore leave. And despite a massive increase in his mugging of the population he's still had to borrow yet more to fund this orgy of socialist waste.
I don't know whether Gordon Brown will win the covetted title of "Worst Chancellor Ever", he's running against such stalwarts as Dennis Healy after all, but he sure ranks down there with the worst of them.