It is rare for me to agree with the SNP Government, but I do on this one. The mini budget, or fiscal event as Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng called it, was a robbery in front of millions of people that even Police Scotland would maybe get to the bottom of. Let’s be honest here, the Tories have declared ‘Class War’ on Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, well those earning less than £50,000 a year and that is the vast majority of us.
Allegedly according to the Express’, the Scottish Government is under pressure to match the proposals by chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng who announced a cut in the basic rate of tax to 19p in the pound and the scrapping of the top rate of income tax on Friday. However, with income tax devolved, middle earners in Scotland are set to face paying more tax than their counterparts down south’. Under pressure from whom other than the nutjob Tories who have lost the plot and the greedy.
I remember when Thatcher did exactly the same thing, it was a disaster for Scotland and the vast majority of us who live here. There is also a huge difference this time. There is no Scottish Oil and Gas to bail them out and fund their giveaway to the rich, there is nothing left to sell off other than the NHS (they will if they think they can get away with it), and the BBC (they won’t, too much good propaganda that we pay for). Even the capitalists are in shock, the pound crashed, we are in the most debt than we have ever been, interest rates have gone up with more prices going up as well. We make very little; we import most of the things we need, and we are all tightening the belt to the extent that we are having to spend less in the shops and what do the scumbag Tories do.
They have decided to burn the house down with the biggest tax robbery in broad day light to make the ultra-rich richer while using borrowing to do it that we will have to pay back through taxes at some point, that is theft, that is robbery, that is mental economics that even the American Republicans wouldn’t do.
Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers tells Bloomberg: “It makes me very sorry to say, but I think the UK is behaving a bit like an emerging market turning itself into a submerging market.” “Between Brexit, how far the Bank of England got behind the curve and now these fiscal policies, I think Britain will be remembered for having pursued the worst macroeconomic policies of any major country in a long time.” “It will not surprise me if the pound eventually gets below a dollar, if the current path is maintained…This is simply not a moment for the kind of naïve, wishful thinking, supply-side economics that is being pursued in Britain.”
Richard Lochhead, SNP Minister, said: “Thankfully income tax rates and bands are devolved here in Scotland and the Scottish Government will set out its tax policies at the Scottish budget. “We will continue to pursue our fairer and more progressive approach to taxation which has protected low earners while raising additional revenues for public service.” I totally agree with Lochhead but what this also means is that the SNP Scottish Government have to show some competence, competence that they haven’t shown in recent years.
Scumbag Scottish Tory Branch Manager Douglas Ross said it was “crucial that the SNP now matches the provisions announced by the Chancellor”. Another total toilet stain and nutter if there ever was one. The Tories have gone so far right now they make Latin American countries look economically sane and we will never have a better opportunity to show that Scotland needs independence yesterday, the SNP will never have a better chance than the next 12 months as the UK commits economic suicide, are they up to the task.
grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com 
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
What will be interesting to see is whether the Scottish Government will oppose the plan to remove the limit on the working week of 48 hours and remove benefits from people who are not demonstrating the correct amount of determination when looking for work. It’s either going to be a head-on collision with Westminster or a head-on collision with the working poor. I would not put money on the SNP, in it’s current form, still being with us in 18 months or so, regardless of what happens with the referendum / plebiscite election.
Stuart
The Tories have declared class war as far as I am concerned, it will be interesting to see which side the SNP will be on as you say. I do think that the SNP are on way down, maybe not out but down. When they fail to deliver the referendum next year and then ask for yet another mandate in their rigged plebiscite election, I don’t think they will get it. I suspect some people will vote for Alba/ISP and while that runs the risk of unionists getting in, we are probably going to have to take a step back to take two forward. The Tories are burning the house down, they look like they are setting themselves up to lose the next election while making their pals richer while they can and then happily go back into opposition while Labour are left to pay for Tory policy hate, the Tories then get back in 5 years later with a whole new set of hate. The usual cycle of Westminster politics, you would hope by then that enough Scots will have seen the light, but I won’t hold my breath.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Larry Summers said, “I think Britain will be remembered for having pursued the worst macroeconomic policies of any major country in a long time”.
Note the past tense … he’s talking about “Britain” as if it won’t exist soon. A bit like the people talked about the Soviet Union in December 1991, just weeks before it dissolved.
And I think he is right.
Back to the budget and ‘economic policies’ of the UK:
As an economist I KNOW that the correct thing to do when you have a cost-of-living crisis allied to price inflation going through the roof is NOT to cut direct levies like income tax rates. These disproportionately benefit the better off even if the tax cuts are related only to the base rate. The fact that the higher rates have been slashed by 5% gives the richest further turbo-boost the latter’s disposable incomes.
The correct response is to cut indirect taxes, specifically value added tax (VAT). Why? Because VAT takes a bigger percentage bite out of poorer folks’ incomes so, if you reduce the rate, the latter get a greater relative increase in their disposables than richer people. The other point is that, if you reduce VAT, you automatically reduce prices for goods and services so recorded inflation takes a dip.
Neither is increasing bank lending rates the right thing to do in the current straitened circumstances. This would be fair enough if inflation was being pulled upwards by demand. But it’s not – inflation is being caused by the supply-side factors of shortages (Brexit) and increased supply chain costs (Brexit), not by people spending too much in the shops or borrowing to purchase homes.
None of the policies make sense. Hence, Larry Summers statement.
I believe that the Tories know that the UK is wrecked and can’t be saved. So, they are hastening its demise and they are taking as much for themselves and their friends before it crashes and they fly off to spend the left off their lives in the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, Bermuda and other sunny tax-haven paradises.
Duncan is
Thank you for that excellent explanation that everyone can see. I suspect the Tories, as you say, know the game is a boggie now and will steal as much as they can as quickly as they can, pass the burden on to poor folk and if they get a little time sell off more of what they can on the way. They will be happy to leave Labour to manage the decline, expect a GE next summer, and after Labour fail as they will cause they are useless, the Tories then come back in to finish the great Thatcher final soloution and rip off. Scotland needs to wake up very very quickly before we have nothing left and it is all in the hands of Tory scum bags and we are basically left with the debt.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce