Rishi Sunak's Budget for the few

 

Today, Rishi Sunak. the multi-millionaire Tory Chancellor, delivered his budget  in the House of Commons. It was a budget for the few. It was a budget  that did not meet the needs  of the British people or our  brilliant public services. It was a budget that papered over the cracks and that failed to build the foundations of recovery. Once again  letting down the country and the people that they should be serving 

But nothing new here, time and time again  we see how the Tories only look after their friends. They have been found to  have wasted  hundreds of millions of pounds having handed over to companies associated with the Conservative Party, contracts that have failed to deliver for the NHS and essential workers and for public safety.

Millions of people are going to have to pay more in council tax because the Tories have failed to support local councils through this pandemic. Hard hit families and those struggling to get by  are going to face higher bills. meaning may will be pushed into poverty,

If that does not expose their meanness, at the same time the Tories are cutting the international aid budget to the world's most ravage country, Yemen by 50%.  Children in that war torn country are starving and the Tories are cutting their support. This is the reality of Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak's  vision of a 'global Britain.'

1.3 m lowest paid workers will now pay tax, £7.5bn tax hikes on workers wages, new Autumn furlough and Universal Credit cliff edge, ten's of thousands on legacy benefits ignored The decision to delay the cut to Universal Credit instead of securing incomes in the long term my making it permanent will lead to 26,000 families in Wales not being able to afford essentials in six months time.

There is absolutely nothing for schools, which are struggling  with increased Covid costs, The Tory failure to invest any resources -, staff, space, support-to help make schools safe continues unaltered, The Tory obsession with full reopening of schools is not matched  by any practical support for making it safe and sustainable.

No extra money for a social care system on its knees, no funding lifeline  for councils struggling to provide services holding communities together. 

Even with a crippling 4% rise in council tax, adult social care services, along with other services, will require an additional £1.6 billion of funding just to stand still, let alone restore the funding axed during the last decade. On top of this our NHS front line workers are being forced to accept a pay freeze, after a year of battling the deadly Coronavirus and working to keep us all safe, many of them sacrificing their lives, contracting the virus and dying because Matt Hancock couldn't be bothered to supply proper personal protective equipment (PPE) at the right time, and now they and  other key workers are being rewarded with  the prospect of  serious economic hardship, instead of a pay rise that they more than earned and deserved. Sunak has insulted millions of workers who have seen us through this crisis. Adding insult to injury  Lifetime Allowance on pensions is also frozen. As a consequence many doctors will leave the NHS or reduce their hours.

This while big business and multinational corporations who have made  billions during  the pandemic will get away scot free; because Sunak has backed away from calls to impose a wealth tax. Emergency action  is needed to protect jobs and wages. But instead Sunak intends to shore up profits and wealth, Even in a pandemic the Tories, it seems  protect the ultra-wealthy.and want us to pay for the crisis as the economy recovers from the Covid crisis, while the rich laugh all the way to the bank. 

I'm baffled that Sunak boasts that we need to spend £407 bn to deal with the pandemic, in comparison to other countries who have not needed to spend anything like this, Why? Because they dealt with it all early. 

Keir Starmer's  weak opposition means that Sunak and the Tories can largely get away with real scrutiny and challenge but no amount of trickery can conceal that this budget attacks the poorest, it is after all a Tory budget and  as a result their budget will do nothing to address a decade of economic inequality that they have been responsible for. At end of the day Tories are still bloody Tories. It is a budget of half measures and quick fixes , a budget that does not begin to measure up to the scale of the challenges we face. If not times were not  stressful enough at the moment, these measures will further increase the burden on  the disadvantaged among us,  whose numbers will no doubt  rise as a result of Sunak's ill thought out budget for the few.