It’s dire, just a nightmare bid to appease the bankers
THIS was a terrible budget for most people. True, it protected pensioners and those on benefits and the minimum wage.
It was also great for the wealthy who will enjoy much higher interest on savings. But for everyone else it was dire. Failure to raise tax bands in line with inflation will put up taxes for most workers by around £250 a year. National insurance might go up by £150 for the same reason.
And the limits won’t change until 2028, meaning this pain is going to last for years.
On top of that was grim news on energy prices which will probably increase by over £600 a year from next autumn.
That leaves people out of pocket by £1,000 a year. But things will get much worse for many. Mortgage rates are now forecast to be around 5% for the next five years.
That means the average loan will cost £4,000 a year more compared with 2020. Rents, which are closely linked, will also rise.
And there is no good news on pay either. In the public sector, expect 2%. This will clearly do nothing to cover these costs.
It may not be much better elsewhere, either, as the forecast is for big job losses, which always keeps wages down.
The Office for Budget Responsibility thinks households will, on average, be more than £2,000 a year worse off overall for the next couple of years. But that’s an average. For millions things are going to be much worse.
For the families suffering mortgage and rent rises in particular, life is going to be a nightmare. In nearly 50 years of watching the economy I have never been as worried or angry as I am now about what is about to hit.
And the absurd thing is that none of this is needed. The official forecast is that inflation will be zero by the end of 2023.
So why all the pain? Certainly not to defeat the inflation resulting from Putin’s war.
It seems it is just about punishing us for wanting to try to survive in modern Britain under a Tory government whose sole aim is to appease bankers in the City of London.
What did we do to deserve this?