Sadly, many people do not understand Money, I myself am NOT an economist, I’m an engineer but I believe it is no accident that such an important subject is not taught in school, I think the reason is precisely because whoever controls the money supply, really controls the Nation.

My understanding is that if the NAO adopted the same procedure as the Court of Auditors, HMG’s accounts would also fail to be “signed off.”
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeucom/270/27010.htm (see para 149)

VAT could rise by 5% to 22.5% to fund a £25 billion public debt reduction in 2010-11.

The overall impact of spending cuts of £60 billion & a £25 billion tax hike will be to cut the budget deficit from a projected £97 billion in 2013-14 to £12 billion. Any rise in the dole queues caused by cutting government jobs could be offset by merging Job Seekers Allowance & Incapacity Benefit into one payment designed to slash economic inactivity. By allowing small & medium sized businesses to opt out of a vast number of regulations you could spur economic growth & create the jobs needed for all those doing either non-jobs in Brown’s client state or who are economically inactive. This will help get unemployment down sooner and public debt would be under control.

Axing the tripartite system , giving the Bank of England back its lost powers , making the inflation target 2% on RPI-x ( more accurate & rigorous than CPI ) and ensuring that MPC members can only serve seven year fixed non-renewable terms to ensure stability & limit political meddling in monetary policy. Bank shares ought to be sold to fund boosting the reserves as a prudent policy & the Bank of England must have the power to curb bank lending if asset prices & credit levels get out of hand. Bank lending levels can permitted to rise once those problems are resolved.

The 50p band on incomes exceeding £150,000 p/a is mad because the rich will just use their accountants to get as much of their money declared as capital gains meaning that they wont pay tax at 40p let alone 50p – rather the rich will pay 18p tax ( that is 10% less than the 20p basic rate that most of us pay). It is hardly fairer taxation from a government that cannot decide if it is New Labour with a pro-enterprise 18% CGT flat rate or Old Labour with a 50% top rate of tax. When it comes to tax Labour seem not to have much of a clue as far as principle is concerned.

A budget like that would have paved the way for recovery – the new top rate would only raise £2 billion ( owing to brain drain , diminished GDP growth , increased avoidance etc). The £2 billion could be found from just cutting EU contributions still further or from less for farmers who would gain from less red tape if we pulled out of the Common Agriculture Policy. Axing the 50p rate to avoid long-term economic damage is just sound sense -RIP New Labour. The rise in the national debt is bad for our economic competitiveness as David Davis wisely said in his remarks in the budget debate today.

Reply: it was off the cuff, so there is no text. I will get a Hansard record soon and post that.

It’s a stratagem employed by dodgy businesses when they are desperate to get the bank to bail them out with more cash. The bond markets may not turn out to be so gullible.

This budget seems to be too little too late and will make little difference to most people, well other than cost us all a few bob!!

And yes, what a good time to ditch the ID card scheme (not that there wasn’t ever a good time!)

How much could we save by leaving the EU altogether?

Or to put it another way the government is spending £20 Million per hour, that it doesn’t have.

Vote of no confidence soon please, let’s get them out and start on the rebuilding .

Reply: Yes – I said lend them as little as possible for as short a time as possible to see them through, but do not subsidise them and do not buy their shares.