Alistar has stitched us up like a kipper!!

Well, so much for the budget then!! Money on fags and booze, good news for all those bootleggers on the booze cruise!! Another 2p on petrol/ diesel. One day I suppose it will all be tax and we will pay nothing for the fuel itself!!! I know it feels like that already. Holiday home owners are also in for a kicking with the ability to offset trading losses against the tax bill. Just as well the Spanish tax rate is (currently) more than ours, at least under double taxation we shouldn't get shafted in both countries.

Roll on the day I can leave this Godforsaken country which is on its knees at the moment. What happened to our once great nation????

Mark

I'm having a bad Spain day Don't talk to me about how much greener the parched, crappy grass is over here. At least your "dogs" aren't flea ridden and rabid. It may be hard, but try to concentrate on the positives, because trust me, the day will come when you've left the frying pan and are getting that long awaited tan in the fire and the penny drops - you'll pick it up and discover that every coin does, after all, really have two sides.

Not quite on its knees, Mark, not yet.  I do love the old country but budgets like this make me feel that I want to be on the next plane out of here.  No help, no assistance and no ideas.  Stamp duty on houses should only be imposed on MPs with a second home or footballers who can afford it.  HIPs are becoming intolerable and I've yet to meet anyone who thinks they are a good idea, just another tax IMHO.  Those on 150 grand plus will find ways of getting around the taxes or move somewhere else plus the money it will bring in is laughable.  The extra duty on petrol will bring in far more than that and will hit those who can least afford it as well as increasing transport cost immeasurably.  2 grand for getting rid of your old car?  Surely crushing an older car is far less green than keeping it on the road?  Plus, he keeps upping the road tax on my people carrier which annoys the hell out of me.  The increase on beer (around 5 to 7p a pint) will simply ensure people keep buying from the cut price supermarkets and more pubs will close down.  Yes, I know places like Wetherspoons are offering cheap (almost on the expiry date) beer but it's already 3 quid a pint at my local.  A little splash of vodka with a tiny bottle of tonic costs the same.  How will increasing the tax on this stuff (which will hit pubs far more than the supermarkets) keep the pubs going?  Training courses for 18  to 25 year olds who have been out of work for over a year?  Most of the people getting made redundant are in their 40s and the jobs to match their skills are disappearing rapidly.  Over 40% of foreign students entering the country (and entitled to living costs, NHS care etc) are bogus.  IT workers from India are given complete exemption from UK income tax and national insurance while they are working in the UK. They can even reclaim VAT on stuff they buy and take back to India.

Their employers are based in India so they pay no corporation tax or employers national insurance. In fact, because they're based in an Indian Special Economic Zone, the employers pay no Indian tax either.

Thanks to Gordon's largesse, this means that the cost of an Indian is about 40% less than the cost of a Brit on the same take home pay. I know of IT companies that are firing British staff as fast as they can print the P45s so that they can be replaced by tax free Indians at a little over half the price.

It is appalling that our government not only tolerates this but encourages it by granting massive tax breaks. And they have the bloody cheek to whine about foreign tax havens.

Wind back to 1997.  Remember how glad (almost joyous) we all felt when Call Me Tony promised a new Britain, a new hope, an end to government sleaze?  How heady those days were and how let down we all feel now.

But the greatest change has been in the erosion of personal liberties.  We are the most spied on nation in the world, we are caught on CCTV dozens of times a day, we have to show identity to buy bus passes, we need photo ID to travel on internal flights, our emails and telephone calls are subject to government intercept, our every move and purchase is recorded and our personal details are recorded on dozens of databases.  Some of us even have spy cameras in our dustbins, for goodness sake!!!  If any of these surveillance techniques had been brought in by a Tory government they would have been accused of being right-wing, fascist control freaks.  So how does the left get away with it?  Even the pre-Berlin wall governments of E Germany and the USSR didn't impose such constraints on personal freedom as this lot has devised. 

Anyway, rant over for the month.  Off to the CB on Saturday and, with a bit of luck, I won't be coming back (sadly, I'll have to but wouldn't it be nice to just up sticks and go?-----Good luck to all of you who have managed it)

Thanks Bob, my day doesn't seem so bad anymore!

IN THE INTEREST OF ECONOMY THE " LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL"  HAS BEEN SWITCHED OFF.

Love your posts Bobaol, you always manage to tell it as it is, keep 'em coming. Happy holiday.

Regards, Poppyseed

Scary thing is that the 50% tax thing will mean nothing - its a budget based on high hope for the world economy's return to fast growth within 8 months. Darling even says his forecast is within margins provided by his advisors. THATS THE SAME ADVISORS GORDON BROWN took on when he was chancellor!! FFS! Huge borrowing amounts to a life of higher taxation for most of us.

Oh, and forget any chance of reduced working hours under EU directives because the UK economy won't now be able to afford such a way of life!!!

I do pray that this labour government are obliterated at the next election. And, I never voted blair in the first place.

Sorry for the rant but my lifelong plans are being effed up no end by this incompetent bunch.

The bigger problem is there is not a good politician amongst the lot of them, who could you vote for that will do any good?

Susan Boyle?

tinto

I agree. I have no confidence the tories woud be any better?   We shall see soon I should think after next election, but i've heard nothing to convince me, just critism of the others.

Just like a Spanish community meeting - all criticism, no suggestions as to how to improve things.

Just a sneaky one he put in as well in case you haven't noticed.  Air Passenger Duty (APD) will increase for flights to Spains in November from £10 to £11 and then from November 2010 to £12.  So if four of you travel that's an extra £8.  Long haul flights will also go up to a ridiculous amount.  If you're thinking of travelling to the US it will rise from £40 to £60 and Australia from £40 to £85.

This means that the UK is now the most heavily taxed country for APD. 

So all of you who keep telling us you get Ryanair flights for a fiver must be telling porkies as the minimum 10 quid (now) goes to good old Gordon and his cronies.  (unless you're flying from Ireland).

IN THE INTEREST OF ECONOMY THE " LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL"  HAS BEEN SWITCHED OFF.

I like that one vilprano  

I must remember in future not to take holiday in the days after a budget. The pound has taken a hammering after the recent steady increases . That's another fiver my car hire has cost me .

Mark

Hi Boboal

I was finding your post interesting until I read the remark about Wetherspoons (to whom I have no connection incidentally). That they sell beer 'Almost on the expiry date' beer is an urban myth. Their beer is probably fresher than any other pub business as they are so powerful they get well looked after including prompt and regular deliveries of freshly brewed product and they can turn their beer over quicker than most when they get it.