Economic incompetence

And no I’m not a bloody Tory but a responsible centre right socialist. The wife’s been reading the blog and she insists we should take the money whilst we can. So I’m overruled but today’s budget statement must rank as one of the most irresponsible of all time. I would rate it as verging on criminal incompetence. Gordon did it again short changing pensioners with the inflation based increase. Increases for pensions are based on the rate of inflation in September before the budget but the inflation figure used is approx half of real inflation figure we face in the shops. Apparently we are going to get the pension increase in January this year instead of April and on top of this a sort of one off payment of 60 quid, not sure when this is going to be paid. There might also be some gain from tax changes but these are not clear. I did a little mental arithmetic on how much I thought Gordon owed each pensioner and I think it amounts to about 90 quid a week which he has cheated us out of since taking office. Thatcher started the downward spiral when she changed the system of linking pensions to pay but Brown has had 12 years to put it right and ignored us.
The Gordon and Alistair show reminded me of two blindfolded bull elephants wallowing up to their necks in a mud pond with on idea how to get out. 2.5% reduction in VAT is not going to get us going to the shops. It will help a little with our fuel bills I suppose.
The one good aspect of this package was the bringing forward of capital investment package for our infrastructure.