[Crabcakes]

Hunt already angling for the post-GE defeat leadership run with sensible thinking. Which is a shame as all that’ll be left are the nutters, so it’ll probably end up being Braverman. Which for the rest of us is great, as it means ineffective and batshit opposition for a few years.

[Youngian]

Don’t see how further tax breaks will attract tech startups. If it does many locals will welcome an influx new skilled workers from around the country and beyond. But not the voters the Tories are pandering to.

[Andy McDandy]

Also, it's not university towns that need investment.

[Bones McCoy]

Also, it's not university towns that need investment.

Everywhere's got a university these days.
There's probably one in Tunbridge Wells with a world leading faculty of incandescent correspondence.

[Youngian]

I’ve lost the Tweet showing stats about who had left the workforce since Covid and it was a higher increase among under 26s than over 50s. What are they doing, selling weed to retired people?
Good luck in persuading over 50s homeowners to return to their former southeast and London addresses from Clacton to put their overalls back on.

[Yug]

If Jeremy Misspelled-Surname wants this particular over-50 to get back in the workplace he's gonna have to try a lot harder than that. I'm leaving early because him and his mates have made my work so shit I don't want to be here any more.

Fuck 'im.

[AOB]

Energy bill help to continue until end of June


Strange use of the word "help" by the BBC. Not putting the price cap up when the price of buying energy is actually coming down is "help"??

Typical household energy bills in Britain had been due to rise to £3,000 a year from April, but instead will be kept at £2,500 until the end of June.

Crack open the bubbly. Let's celebrate.

But a £400 winter fuel payment will not be renewed, meaning households' costs will still rise in the short term.

So the "help" is ending then? Change your headline.

[Crabcakes]

While the Tories might think that riding on the coat-tails of global economic improvement will see them through, I suspect a lot of 50-and-over types - who otherwise might skew Tory - won’t be particularly enamoured with being told to work more and retire later. Particularly when it becomes obvious that their extra years of work contributions will be helping pay the pensions of wealthier people who Hunt gave a pension tax break to.

[Youngian]

Keep forgetting Hunt is supposed to be smarter than he looks and sounds. This budget is either the work of a hostage in a Potemkin Village or just aimed at people who believe they’re real.

[Crabcakes]

Meanwhile in the real world, a mate of mine and her chap have just been told their rent is going up by £750. A *month*.

So yeah, 11p off some booze and a tax break for very rich pensioners is probably not going to cut it.

[Andy McDandy]

Where do they live? I'm assuming London, because in much of the rest of the country that would be pushing doubling it.

[mattomac]

Keep forgetting Hunt is supposed to be smarter than he looks and sounds. This budget is either the work of a hostage in a Potemkin Village or just aimed at people who believe they’re real.

Again isn’t this patronising, everyone who goes to the pub is a Brexiteer.

It actually felt a bit like a damp squib, a Government with no real ideas left (only decent one stolen from Labour, set up for just after the election so they can inherit it was slightly odd), tinkering around the edges, in fact anything half decent seemed to be helping Labour which is odd as usually it’s burning down the house before the new tenants arrive.

With the situation developing in the financial sector and after Liz Truss maybe it’s all they really good do, though a tax break for people who can retire at 50 is a bit odd and something Labour will put an amendment against next week.

[Andy McDandy]

Not all pub goers are brexiteers, but an awful lot of brexiteers love their pub. Remember those shots of gammons crowding into pubs as restrictions were lifted, all looking as miserable as fuck? The guys arrested for trekking across the country to visit an open boozer when different areas had different regulations? Leavers to a man.

They want to go to the pub, get away from the wife who's doing their head in, indulge their machismo in one of the few ways they can, by having a bloody beer because they're a grown up now.

[Youngian]

Pubs are dying on their feet because of the energy crisis and other rising costs. Still thriving in metropolitan areas so Hunt’s beer subsidy will disproportionately benefit the wokes.

[Crabcakes]

Where do they live? I'm assuming London, because in much of the rest of the country that would be pushing doubling it.

Yep. I think there is an element of them being long-term lets, so they haven’t seen much in the way of year-on-year increases for a while. But still…

[Crabcakes]

Hunt, in an interview this morning about his loophole to let in more construction workers

People who voted for Brexit didn’t vote for no immigration.

Yeah, I think you’ll find mate that many people who voted for Brexit wanted *exactly* that, and that’s why your boss is banging on about small boats and your bigoted moron colleague is being given free reign to come up with increasingly cruel policies

[Youngian]

People who voted for Brexit didn’t vote for no immigration.

“Don’t mind them if they come here to work,” was generally a lie. As was the caveat about Indian IT workers are welcome. No one ever asks “what do you do?” before saying ‘fuck off back to where you came from.’

[Tubby Isaacs]

I know Cabinet ministers are constituency MPs as well. but I'm not sure I like the Chancellor bargaining with the CEO like this. "Yeah, we can keep this shop in Farncombe open, maybe. But what can you do for us as a company?"

He might regret this is if the shop stays open and there's something controversial in the budget that Boots benefits from.

[Youngian]

Hunt reads the Economist so he must know what he’s doing at the Treasury.
Has Shapps bought in his Warlord annuals to the office for a photo op?

[Tubby Isaacs]

The heavyweight Economist reader Chancellor strikes again.

This isn't going to hold. All this stupid stuff just to make some arbitary fiscal targets. The outlook may well improve, who knows, but I guess that's already being set (hypothetically) set aside for tax cuts.