Foreign Perspectives

Prosperity for all is the aim but it’s going to be a long time before we get to that point as this budget is all about repairing the foundations of the economy that were so badly damaged by the previous Labour administration.

There’s a sensible capping of benefits almost across the board with probably the largest headlines to come from the cap on housing benefit. One suspects that the largest headlines to come will be from some of those in the million pound housing benefit mansions.

What it also cut was a whole raft of seemingly minor benefits which were introduced piecemeal over the course of the previous Labour administration. What all those different benefits largely did was to create a whole bureaucracy to administer them with little benefit for those who probably needed them most who never even knew they existed.

Increasing VAT to 20% after next Christmas is the single measure that paid for much of the changes. Notably this is a simple measure rather than the complex mix of additional tarifs that some recommended in terms of eliminating exemptions to childrens’ clothing or books.

With the announced substantial cuts in government spending there’s going to be something of a forced move from the public to the private sector for many. That’s going to need equally substantial retraining in many instances.

What this is intended to do overall is to get rid of what has become a crippling level of public debt in a remarkably short period of time. That rapid reduction meant a fairly harsh budget but one that should get us back on an even keel within the forseeable future.