VAT slip?

its one sure fire way to add to the vivid mess the politicians have created together with thier fat cat greedy scum banker mates and will bring sbout the full force of the people in this country and see a possible revolution.. folk are angry, folk are livid, folk are ready for action, its only you and those your stuck around reporting upon who are blind to this sheer whieghty fact. Personally, I cant wait..

Now don't let us down Nick, keep it balanced: I've credited you all with a return to neutrality (more or less ...) over the last few days.

Keep away from the leaks & the spinners !

Disgusting. Brown and his cronies ought to be in prison, not office. Their lies make me feel sick.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

So they are either liars or inept fools (or both)

Which do you think they are?

And right on cue, Nick arrives to spell out the Governments spin.
Well done Nick, another pat on the back from Gordon

"This fits in with what both I and the BBC's Business Editor, Robert Peston were told in the few days before the PBR."

Why were you - the media - told anything before Parliament?

Nick - do us a favour and stop the Brown-nosing.
Do some investigative reportage and find out why Brown's claim of Britain being 'well-placed' to weather the recession (sorry - 'downturn') is at odds with the OECD's statement "that the UK will suffer a deeper recession than any other major economy in 2009."

So a snap election is on the cards in early jan then nick. GB cant afford to wait for unemployment to top 3 million plus, thats why Ally D gave them nice bribes away yesterday

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

There are 8 (eight) blogs on the V.A.T. SLIP, all of which have been referred to the Moderator. Co-oincidence or what? Statutory Instruments are made as part of the Bill, in this case the Finance Bill 2009; so it would have been part of the proposed Budget - Barrister please explain.

That's a really interesting topic, Nick. There's a lot of things wrong with the quality and degree of information that gets into the public domain. It can be too easy for people to misunderstand or for some politicians to make something of it that has nothing to do with reality. This causes unnecessary complications or attitude that we can do without.

The Prime Minister is right to shrug off Osborne and Cameron and yawn with disinterest. They're just a pair of high status trolls who bragged and swaggered their way to the top. They have nothing useful to say and their popularity is just made up of the wrong sort of attention. Carrying on like that will just buy them another ratings drop.

Osborne and Cameron clearly want what Gordon's got. They ache for his power, prestige, and influence. Behind the lurid rhetoric they're insanely jealous and, from time to time, throw a little temper tantrum because they can't get what they want. Of course, the big secret they'll never admit to is they're Gordon Brown's biggest fanbois.

Ooh, spank me daddy.

Lord they cant do anything properly can they.

A good rule of thumb is that governments have plans for everything - for raising VAT, for lowering VAT, for abolishing zero-rating, for abolishing VAT. The fact that one of them accidentally got published doesn't mean that it is some kind of hidden commitment.

So just to be clear here:

A document that reflected an option that had been considered by ministers but then rejected

Contains the phrase:

The proposed changes will reduce 2008 until the end of 2009. The standard rate will then return 2010, and subsequently increase to 18.5% in 2011-12.

Sounds pretty much like its decided to me, proposals arent worded like that are they!

Could this be anything to do with the Government not wanting to debate all this in the House. They really are a shower...

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Nick

Exactly what were you and Robert Peston told before the PBR?

I seem to recall that you insisted that you hadn't been telephoned (or anything like that) regarding the budget leaks.

Come clean.

- and folllow up on Mandlesons tariff discussions with Oleg...

There is no sense of rationality in the Darling proposed/Brown supported PBR anyway.

How can anyone believe that the recession will stop mid 2009 - and then there will be a massive upturn in the output of UK plc?

This is just fairy tale politics and economics.

IF Darling and Brown lined up the super-confident economists who produced the data and data-models that justified such a confident projection of UK rapid recovery, I guess they'd be the guys who created the "global warming hockey stick" model.

I'd like to see their photos and a brief resume of their background experience recorded and placed on a government web-site for the next 5 years.

So, when the "projections" go tits up, I'd like to know exactly WHO Brown and Darling relied on for such fatuous input.

Economics is NOT a science - it's an art-form.

If it has (which I believe) any scientific basis, it should be very carefully treated as "the best guess we can come up with, given the data we can cram into our model".

That's all.

That's why the BoE had to scramble to re-adjust it's prognostications.

For goodness sake, the Treasury and Brown have loads of highly paid advisers to steer them forward.

I'm not an economist.

You don't need to be to realise that the "wonderful" year-on-year "growth" of the UK economy was based on a credit bubble.

That has been evident for years.

What you have to be is completely daft to believe that bubbles don't burst.

This is hardly news. I expect the government considered a lot of different ways to stimulate the economy.

So, does the government plan to raise VAT to 18.5% or DID they have a plan to raise it until the recession hit?
Come on Nick, don't just regurgitate government spin, do some digging, like a journalist should!
You might want to ask what will happen to the fuel duty rise once VAT goes back to 17.5%. Will duty drop by 2.5% and keep things neutral or as I suspect, end up being permanent?
These are the questions you should be asking and telling people, not the glossy spin.

power_2_the_tories,

Your comment is still awaiting moderation but just want to say in advance that it's nonsense. Saves me doing it later.

Bravo Nick! Can you also drop in that you have been told the Tories have no response to all this and that I am in fact the greatest, most prudent and most handome Prime minister this country has ever had? Can you also say that you and Peston happen to overhear that I am in fact not only the best, I also saved the world from economic collapse? And finally if you can tell people you happen to be told that all these lies about lots of debts and my terrible borrowing during the boom were in act all fiction then who knows, we may talk about a knighthood someday? It seems to have died down a bit, all that fuss over these honours. Lots of love, your faithful Master. Gordon Brown.

I may be wrong but has no one thought that putting this info in wasn't accidental at all?

I mean, the Government's goal at the moment is for consumers to spend more, however consumers will not do so if they feel that prices are going to continue to fall in the future - so we all hold off spending.

So, the Government realise this and - whether they intend to actually implement the eventual VAT rise or not - the consumers are given reason to believe that prices will rise, massively, in the not so distant future and will be more inclined to spend more now.

Meeaaooww !! The moggie is out of the bag...

I've had to put up with people (mostly Tories describing the 2.5% VAT reduction as insignificant, irrelevant and a waste of time.

However as soon as this document was released that suggested an increase of 1% on VAT at a later date, up pops Mr Cameron describing it as a Labour tax "BOMBSHELL".

This sort of double speak does the Tories no good at all!

Even if the error is genuine as the Government contend, surely the Tories still have a point about a black hole. This could explain the widely recognised optimistic growth forecasts. That is, sensitive to the charge of a tax bombshell and desperate to balance the books, albeit only by the second half of the next decade, the easiest thing to do is plug the black hole with unrealistically high growth forecasts. In the alternative, this is merely incompetence. Not something that instils much confidence from Government purporting to know how to resolve the current malaise.

They say bad news comes in threes...

1/ Income Tax rise which would affect almost, er, no one - and by only putting an extra 5% on income over £ 150 k would hardly break sweat for those affected.

2/ Suddenly, National Insurance to be put up for, er, well, almost everyone in work...

3/ Er, and now, what was going to a single tax rise affecting only the 'rich and famous', is to be supplemented with a possible hike in VAT which no one will be able to avoid..

Once you've crossed that threshold...

Which ever way you look at this it shows that the government did not have a clue what they where going to do as late as last week.

Nick,

What this does prove is that the Government work both you and Robert Peston very hard.

They drip facts to you - so that you can appear all seeing and all knowing.


Unfortunately - it is very difficult given the continuous flow of juicy tit-bits - to avoid becoming a quasi mouth piece for government.


We will have to read the blogs from you and Peston and listen to your TV punditry with even keener ears than before. Which facts are real? Which have been subtly placed by the master spinners that are Labour.

As clever as you think you are - Labour will still work you to play their agenda.

It is obvious if the economy shrinks and public sector spending is maintained in real terms, and public borrowing rises that taxation has to rise to cover both the recent intervention (bail-out, NR etc) and any temporary tax break given. Or subsequently public spending has to drop and taxation to rise together. Please can HMG advise where the growth is to come from to replace the contraction of the City. This just smells to high heaven, re the 18.5 VAT 'mistake' - you do not sign off a document at a ministerial level unless you agree it. And what is Plan B if the recovery does not come along on cue, or is that the Conservatives. Further - what is proposed to promote lending, advised as essential by the BoE. The economy is not the only thing stalling.

Sorry, I made a mistake on my VAT. That's alright then, I won't have to pay for it!!!!!

Dream on.

It is a criminal offence to make an incorrect return. It is a criminal offence if the Post Office gets it wrong. It is a criminal offence if your book keeper gets it wrong. It is a criminal offence if your accountant gets it wrong. It is a criminal offence if the Inspector gets it wrong. The only one ever responsible and always pays for it is the tax payer; never those on final salary pensions paid for by the tax payer.

Do not expect fairness - the Tax Payers Charter was abolished by GOrDon along with fair pensions for those that have to pay for the rest of them. Dont' expect morality - money has none, but we expect our politicians to have both a sense of fairness and morality. We expect our Civil Servants to be responsible for what they do, or fail to do.

Dream on.

The person responsible for this "mistake" probably on expenses and a final salary pension scheme will not ever be found accused criminalised or bankrupted because he/she is not a responsible tax payer; just paid for by them and never ever to be identified. If they were, they would be sacrificed for embarassing GOrDon.

Fair? Dream on.

"Signed by a government minister". The oeprative word is "signed". Do ministers normally sign drafts?

They wanted to hide it - they forgot to delete it. They've been caught with their trousers down and with their hands in our pockets. Not a pretty image.

You would have thought they would proof read the PBR before releasing it. Darling? Brown? Cooper...? What, none of them read it from cover-to-cover? Go figure.

If they can't be bothered to check the detail on something receiving so much attention, how can anyone trust the level of due diligence on any of their models that show that the economy will recover at the end of next year, or that its appropriate to saddle the UK taxpayer with the most debt in generations without fighting a war.

Nick

Are you saying that

a) you and Robert Peston were told, in advance of the PBR that Government had considered and rejected the idea of an increase in the rate of VAT to 18.5% in 2011/2012 ?

or

b) that they had considered and rejected the idea of announcing such an increase as part of the PBR ?

What you have said in this blog is very supportive of the Government's position and possibly justifiably so. However, if you are going to go public on the point,l you surely have a duty to be quite specific as to what you were told ?

As a matter of interest, why didn't you report this before ?

Everyone already knows that the Government's forecast to get out of recession so early is optimistic.


If there is any delay in exiting recession, then of course taxes have to go up under the government plans.


Given all Labour forecasts have been wrong for a long time, they will already need to have contingency plans to do us over for more tax in place.

The PBR showed the most positive spin the government could muster - but of course they won't publish all those contingency plans upfront

Given the announcements yesterday - you'd be mad not to be prepared for a hike in VAT after the "pre-election" give away.

Of course a VAT increase is on the cards. We will be countless billion in debt! It has to be paid somehow.


Luckily there is still one bloke called Keith working in a small business in Essex who isn't on the government payroll and is keeping the economy chugging along. He'll just have to work harder.


Happy Christmas Keith.

"This fits in with what both I and the BBC's Business Editor, Robert Peston were told in the few days before the PBR."

What fits in? The innocent explanation, or that it is consistent with the Campelson briefings of Mssrs Robinson and Peston. Whatever happened to the end of spin Nick?

Less of a tax bombshell more like A slogan firecracker thrown the by Conservatives who have nothing of any interest to say.

Hi

Due to the recent 'budget' this is the only blog I have viewed & commented on.

It maybe it is endemic throughout the BBC but your method of noting the time is annoying and incorect.

08.30 is in the morning and it can be denoted as 8.30am.

08.30pm is wrong it should be:
either 8.30pm or 20.30.

Use the 24 hour system or the am/pm but not both.

The much-vaunted tax giveaway proves to be the usual headline stuff with yet more stealth taxes tucked away,the cuts are temporary,the rises are permanent.A government who tell all that cutting taxes is the way to get out of trouble in fact raising them and planning significant rises after the next election.Same Labour window-dressing,same Labour disinformation,same contempt for the British Public.Brown says the whole world is doing things "his way",if any other country has just introduced a whole raft of tax increases under the guise of cuts I must have missed that bit...and still no mention of how exactly the self-proclaimed financial geniuses of New Labour intend to fund public sector pensions,PFI payments e.t.c. I'm not sure if this lot are totally stupid or if they just think the British public are.

Very good Nick.

Not so long ago politicians resigned for breaking the Budget Purdah. Your comment that both yourself and Peston were both briefed on this in advance of the PBR does make you quite complicit in this whole mess, and by extension I'm less likely to trust what you have to say on it.

This counts as news, does it? "Government considers various options before deciding what to do"? I say well done to everyone who (a) at least thought open-mindedly about various different possibilities before making a decision, and (b) then made the most sensible decison possible.

The fact that people are flexible enough to consider various choices and reject most of them rather than just blindly and in blinkers following a particular line is neither newsworthy nor blogworthy.

This is exactly how a non-story begins. The pundits in the BBC newsroom produce questions about the Government's behaviour based on a discussion document as though the ideas suggested were Darling's or Browns. They know fully that the whole point of discussion documents is to examine a range of ideas and make choices. As the treasury is stuffed with Thatcherite dinosaurs, you'd expect some many of the secretaries and others to produce these ideas. The Tories, having no ideas of their own leap on this dumped idea as evidence that there is a black hole, whereas, the real black hole is then one Osborne is digging for himself and Cameron. As for the Beeb, serious political journalism seems to have died and been replaced by Daily Mail style sensationalism which gives then impression that the political team is a wholly owned subsiduary of Cameron's Neo-Cons!

Nothing surpises me more with this mob.

Now i'm going to go back and read the interesting stuff - in the form of comments from REAL people.

Nick

Seen you on telly - you dont mention

This fits in with what both I and the BBC's Business Editor, Robert Peston were told in the few days before the PBR.


Why not? what exactly were you told? As you are not a member of the goverment, just a member of the public, I think this needs to be examined futher.

p.s. Has Mandleson told you all about his tariff discussions with Oleg? And you have just chosen to keep his secret? You really must tell...

"A Treasury document signed by a government minister states that VAT will rise to 18.5% in 2011-12 - which would represent an unannounced one per cent rise in the level of VAT now."

No, a rise from 17.5 to 18.5 is rise of 100 x (18.5 - 17.5)/17.5 = 5.7%

You mean to say that it's a rise of ONE PERCENTAGE POINT.

With all the global crisis regarding the economy, has the UK government and it's citizens considered employing Islaamic Banking? It provides full-time justice to both small and big businesses. This temporary change in VAT will not be the full-time solution for long. Your comments are welcomed(-_-).

Nothing to say, just saw a big queue awaiting moderation so I thought I would do the British thing and join it.

I'm on the dole.

I welcome a cut in VAT, the price of my essentials - Bread, milk and bake beans will come down.

Nice one Alistair and Gordon.

Well, Well Nick I did warn you about the small print:

The small print of the Pre-Budget Report (PBR) document reveals the start of substantial public sector cutbacks over the next five years.

Gordon Brown’s £5bn saving spree: drive on the hard shoulder and delay free childcare.

Hospitals, police officers, nurseries and motorways are set to bear the brunt of £5 billion of spending cuts within two years.

Naw it cant be, not on NuLabours watch!

If NuLabour are supporting workers why are they hitting them the hardest?

I would have thought that he may have pitched the savings at Quangos, that is were the non-jobs and high rollers are.

#48, are you being ironic? I do hope so as otherwise you are going to be very disappointed....

VAT is one of the most stupid taxes we pay - and frankly the whole system needs redesignation. If you are a fan of Jaffa Cakes you are VAT exempt, where as if you personally favour Chocolate covered Malted Milks, you will pay a 17.5 (or now a mere 15) % penalty.

You pay the same percentage tax if you can afford a £5000 pair of designer shoes or if you struggled to work to buy your shoes that cost £50?

VAT doesn't make sense, and never really has. And this tiny cut will help almost no one, except the buisiness who wont cut there prices but will make slight ore profit. Clearly a meritable aim for a labour government!

Your bias is now becoming so blatant that I think you should look at yourself and seriously consider resigning.

You are taking hard-earned taxpayer's money and enriching yourself with it and they deserve unbiased reporting in return.

If you want to favour one particular party then you should take a job outside the BBC.

the reptiles have got into Darling Bown, and we are doomed!

This is hardly news. I expect the government considered a lot of different ways to stimulate the economy.

It's the same with game development. Features and content get added, modified, and chopped all the time. Nothing is final until it's final. It's also possible to show the media stuff before it hits the public domain so they're prepped before release. This sort of thing happens all the time.

I'm generally pleased with Labour's shift in focus towards quality and kindness. The Tories and their media pals could be headlining that instead of bigging themselves up while talking everyone else into a depression.

As the Osborne's economic grandstanding is creating a danger of destroying an economic recovery, I hope Cameron is pleased that his Baby P grandstanding is causing a real danger that children will be unecessarily harmed. I predict another poll collapse for the Tories as their attempt to win at any cost backfires again.

"Strange things happen at the 1-2point".

What on earth are all you Tories up in a lather about? Apart of course from defiantly returning to your chosen ground as THE stupid party. And the politically cynical and irresponsible party. ('Let's not have any policies at all on dealing with the worst global recession for eighty years, but let's say "tax bombshell" over and over and over again until we are quite BLUE in the face....")

Get real. In case you Tories haven't yet noticed, unprecedented and previously unthinkable measures are being taken all over the place. Banks are being nationalised either directly or de facto (Citibank the latest), industries are being rescued (US automotive), quite unthinkable sums are about to be poured into the US economy by the Obama administration... And you parochical people are shocked (shocked!) by the fact that the UK Treasury is very seriously considering such things as a 1% VAT hike in a couple of years time. Of course they are. And of course they should be.

You might have been listening a bit too much to the jumped up aristocrats in their pyjamas, Cameron and Osborne, and so perhaps haven't grasped that the world economy is teetering on the edge of absolute disaster. I very much hope that the real politicians and their teams (Brown, Obama, Sarkozy, Merkel etc.) are going to continue to consider all sorts of radical options. Because boy do we need them.

If Cameron and Osborne and their supporters in the kindergartens want to continue to play with their building blocks and their jigsaws, carry on. But forgive the rest of us if we are not very interested in your childish babbling given the state of the global economy.

Thiirelevation is hardly surprising, is it, the Labour Party has been stealthily increasing taxes over the 11 years that the voters have been conned into returning them. The problem is that the EU is an albatros round our necks and is the main cause, along with the profligate spending of Labour, for our problems.

The sooner we, as a country, stop paying the criminaly ruinous ammount to Brussels for the privilage of being dictated to the better. The saving will pay for all the woes that this government finds its self in and enable a masive tax cut as well.

As clever as you think you are - Labour will still work you to play their agenda.

In typical cynical Jonathan Cook style, he tells employed experts their job while peddling a negative subtext that's exclusively pro-Tory.

Don't bullshit a bullshitter.

If VAT on fuel is being reduced by 2.5% but duty is being increased by 2.5% the price remains the same. But for companies who claim back VAT the amount they claim back will be less on the same size fuel bill. How can this budget help them.

So the "Gordonment" leak, spin and brief - yet they should announce this to parliament first - not journalists.


It gets worse - I hear that Alistair Darling is ducking out of leading for the government in Wednesday's debate on the Pre Budget Report and that his stand in will be Yvette Cooper.



Labour treat parliament and the public with contempt.

OLinUK (#48) - as basic foodstuffs, bread milk and baked beans are all zero-rated for VAT, so you'll save nowt.

So the government "have no plans" to put VAT up after the next election. Just like they had "no plans" to raise NI before the 2002 election, then?

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/archive/1937996.stm

Trick me once, you're a fool. Trick me twice, I'm a fool.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

The sooner we, as a country, stop paying the criminaly ruinous ammount to Brussels for the privilage of being dictated to the better. The saving will pay for all the woes that this government finds its self in and enable a masive tax cut as well.

That's the price of entry to the world's largest economy. You know, your ability to work and live anywhere in a landmass that runs from the Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean and from the Atlantic to the Urals, with added benefits of standardisation and zero tariffs.

Yeah, let's just pull out. All those fat-cat Tory pensioners would have to leave their villas in Tuscany, and business and finance would suddenly find its biggest market clam tighter than a nun in a whorehouse. The thought of being jammed on a sinking mudball with a bunch of blazered buffons is a real slice of heaven.

Labour treat parliament and the public with contempt.

What, like Osborne and Cameron using it as a platform to ruin the economy and harm children at risk just cuz they want to win an election? Politics aside, I'm really disgusted that people in their position ignore real issues because they're so consumed with their own ambition. And your partial trivilisation of that is questionable at best.

It wasn't so long ago that NuLabour actually admitted that tax had reached the maximum acceptable by the taxpayers of the UK; that theory seems to have been torn up.
Should we just send our shirts to 10 Downing Street by registered mail?

#62

Are you a public sector worker by any chance?

Dear Nick
Britain is NOT WELL PLACED to ride out this crisis, and the Government are ducking and diving the real truth about what Socialismn, has bought on us, Hiding behind Capitalismn, and Globalisation,
When Brown states this you automatically have to think the opposite, he cannot be trusted, Britain is in the mire, and sinking, Woolworth, MFI, Staunch British Companies, decades old, going down the pan, this tells us alot about the economy,

#63 skynine: "That theory seems to have been torn up".

Let me tell you a secret skynine: EVERY theory has been torn up. The world economy is moving into completely uncharted territory. In case you haven't noticed, the world banking system is now effectively owned by a handful of governments (including our own). Who would ever have imagined this to be possible?

It really is very boring indeed now to come on here and read endless bloggers saying: 'shock! horror! the government is doing things which it did not predict a year ago!"

EVERY government in the world is doing things it didn't think in a million years that it would have ever have been doing.

The question is whether these things will work to avert a major global meltdown in the real economy.

What we can be absolutely sure of is that doing nothing and instead playing childish political games (the Cameron / Osborne position) will be of no help whatosover. If the Tories have nothing to contribute to our current difficulties, they should have the decency to keep their adolescent aristocrat mouths shut and spare us the meaningless babble. Brown and Obama and Sarkozy will meanwhile get on with actually addressing our problems.

This is incredibly disingenuous on the part of the Tories. They surely know that governments consider all sorts of options before announcing policy. The fact that this particular option made its way into a draft statutory instrument doesn't mean a great deal. The Treasury would presumably have prepared draft legislation to give effect to all the options under consideration in order to be able to legislate for the chosen option promptly once the decision was made. What this really shows is how desperate the Conservatives are becoming.

Nick, wouldn't you make more as one of Gordon's spin doctors? I know you'll say your job is to report the news, not to test its veracity, but if this were a Tory document you and all the other BBC political correspondents would be over it like a rash, questioning evey figure and challenging every supposition.

I'm sure its true that political correspondents have to tread carefully, but there is a world of difference between that and becoming a mouthpiece for government propganda. The kindest word to use about your approach (and that of your colleagues including the famously challenging 'paxo') would be craven.

As a very worried taxpayer - oh and the licence fee too - I should like you, or anyone at the BBC, to tell me exactly what this is going to cost me - an ordinary rate taxpayer. It's a nonsense to suggest that the tax from the rich will cover it - by the time their accountants have worked it through they probably won't pay a penny extra.

I'd also like to know what the non-governmental consensus is with regard to the likely length and depth of this recession - just how overly optimistic is Gordon-as-darling being? How much extra, extra tax will I have to pay if he is out by a year on length, or say fifty percent on the growth figures post recession?

We all know it's a gamble - we don't need 24 hour news to tell us that - what we all want to know is how big a gamble - with detail.

Cheers,

Charles

#62 CEH

"I'm really disgusted that people in their position ignore real issues because they're so consumed with their own ambition."

Charles I actually find myself agreeing with you for possibly the first time. You've summed up exactly how I feel about Gordon.

I don't know why NR has thought fit to introduce this item. It's yet another red herring and is nothing of importance in the grand scheme of things. Who on earth is interested in what might have been? The actual measures and their impact are what is important here.

I recall back in 1991 that the rise in VAT from 15% to 17.5% was to replace the government income lost through mass non-payment of Poll Tax. It's nice to see that now Council Tax has been introduced, the VAT rate has at last reverted to 15%!

HANG ON - THIS WAS SIGNED AND DATED THE 24TH.

FESS UP NICK.

This isn't an old draft that was accidently released.

If what you say is true STEPHEN TIMMS signed the wrong document and noone noticed at the time!!

When Blair took us to war with Iraq - was that deliberate or did he sign the wrong document?

STEPHEN TIMMS SHOULD RESIGN

Does anyone really care?
Irrespective of budget proposals, surely what matters is that the country and its people are in trouble if measures aren't put in place?
The consequences of raising taxes later must be better than having millions dependant on the State now and not being able to contribute Taxes later, surely?
I can't understand why Osborne and Darling both didn't put Party games (sorry Politics) to one side and go forward with what could be done, rather than what cannot.

We're heading for 1 trillion of debt by 2012 according to the government's own figures.

And by the way, who would put a red cent on this forecast actually being met, when they've missed their borrowing targets by miles over every budget in the last 10 years.

So how would anyone other than a half-wit refute the suggestion that one way or another we're going to be taxed to the hilt come 2010 and beyond?

It doesn't matter what is planned or not planned, admitted or not admitted at this stage, whoever wins the next election is going to be putting up taxes of all sorts.

The election campaign will be about which party can lie the most convincingly, and try to pretend that it ain't going to happen - and unfortunately Brown is world-class in this respect.

It's a question of whether you can stomach 5 more years of this bunch of liars and charlatans or try the other lot.

Brown is going to go down in history as an utter disaster for this country, but he won't worry. He thinks that there are enough stupid people in the country to actually believe him. And it's probably true.

First the typo in the PBR.
The Tory leaning posters who have spent the last weeks informing us how utterly incompetent GB and AD are find it unreasonable that they made a cock up in proofing of a 200 page document which they no doubt changed with pencil margin notes dozens of times.
Now whilst it is clear and admitted that the increase was in the original document I have no doubt following the weekends papers and soundings of their MPs it was decided against and removed but they forgot the text was already at the printers - so yes it's a cock-up - par for the course with them.
If the economy doesn;t recover on the lines predicated we do however know where the next increase is likely to come in taxes.

It also tells us I believe which branch of the business community has the ear of HMG at present - that being the small business community hence the rattling on with VAT which seems to overly exercise small business due to the mucking around with flat rates, registered or not that what should be a reasonably simple tax to understand and work with. Hence they have also cocked-up even the 1% decrease.

If Osborne and Cameron make this mistake the central plank of their attack in the debate then they will miss the target by a country mile. It is the easy target but it is the wrong target.
Frankly the most useful think Osborne could do is resign his post and let Ken Clarke have a go - Darling would be toast. I can;t forget both GO and DC we are told are suited to this crisis because of previous experience advising previous chancellors and economic policy. Unfortunately it was the worst Tory chancellor in recent memory they advised and their economic policy experience was honed at a time when they had nothing to offer.
No they rightly tell us it's a crisis and unprecedented - so move over and let experienced hands who were active at the prudent times take the lead.
And lest the screaming Labourites accuse me of harking back to Thatcher - no we do not need that brand of economic mismanagement at this time either.

Hmmm. Nick, if, in the few days before the PBR, you and Robert Peston were told something consistent with a VAT increase to 18.5% being rejected, why was his blog over the weekend suggesting that VAT might go up to 22.5%?

Where to start?

#14 Carrots
Well said. The phraseology that was used says it all.
#17 Real-Truth
Well said. Parliament has been well and truly sidestepped over this. Don't you think it's frightening that we're all crying out for an election, but to what? A toothless dog, which is what it is under this maladminstration.

Has anybody actually read anything the tao master's written? Can't be bothered with hs twaddle any more.

Nick,
where are all your high-minded principles about not haveing somebody else set your agenda?
Why aren't you criticzing the government for leaking?
Why aren't you questioning more about inconsistencies in government rumours?
As far as I'm able to percieve anything, whatever we get from the government is a rumour, even the PBR.

The Tories rather ironically have now adopted the Neville Chamberlain position in politics. "Crisis? What Crisis? I am sure if we do nothing everything will work out fine. The threat from Mr Hitler (global meltdown of the real economy) is nothing to get too excited about".

It's really sad. The Tories are like a bad health service adminstrator in the MASH field hospital as the bodies are beginning to be flown in, tapping their calculators and clipboards and saying: "We better be careful with those blood transfusions. We don't want to have to ask good middle class people for more donations in two years' time. Probably better just to let a few of these poor people die now".

Not a pretty sight to watch grown men not only completely out of their depth, but focused 100% on party political advantage. Cameron and Osborne fortunately will pay for this politically. The public knows that we are in a terrible mess and something needs to be done. The Tories won't fool them that Neville Chamberlain was right.

#76 protesting_in_vain

Good point!

Who reports on the reporters Nick? if the third estate are in cahoots with the Government where does that leave the public?

Just shows that the public really have to keep the government (and their BBC cronies) from intefering with the internet -- its the only way we get genuinely free speech.

I wonder what other Treasury documents might be hanging around giving indications of future income tax levels, vehicle excise duty figures, fuel levies, council tax and anything else which would be more transparent evidence that things are just about to get a whole lot worse-big time.

It's the same with game development. Features and content get added, modified, and chopped all the time. Nothing is final until it's final. It's also possible to show the media stuff before it hits the public domain so they're prepped before release. This sort of thing happens all the time.

I'm generally pleased with Labour's shift in focus towards quality and kindness. The Tories and their media pals could be headlining that instead of bigging themselves up while talking everyone else into a depression.

As the Osborne's economic grandstanding is creating a danger of destroying an economic recovery, I hope Cameron is pleased that his Baby P grandstanding is causing a real danger that children will be unecessarily harmed. I predict another poll collapse for the Tories as their attempt to win at any cost backfires again.

"Strange things happen at the 1-2point"

First, if this is like 'game development' you forgot the version control and configuration management.

In other words, you keep the discarded stuff well away from the current version.

This document is very recent, dated the 24th.

Based on Labour's record in government; I don't believe a word they say. I doubt too, neither to the British public.

As for win at any cost, that's rich.

So that PBR wasn't partisan, targeted at core votes and designed to skewer Cameron?

Oh no, no. Then again I like my pork chops with wings on.

As for the media, proof positive they have been suckered again by Labour's news management. There will be those found to be complicit with their 'narrative'.

Just like newspaper editors being in the 100,000 to 150,000 a year bracket, they have just made every political journalist look very stupid indeed.

No surprise then that this story is going to run.

As for the Tories lead shrinking, I don't think so, despite Labour's dog whistle attacks, I think the Tories are getting the upper-hand.

This might be news to you but this government's economic prowess being worse than Callaghan and Healey's is not a vote winner.

I find it hard to believe what the BBC says these days.

Information not forthcoming, then when the government find themselves in a hole someone (no names) says, "Oh I knew about this all the time."

Disingenuous I think the word is!!!

I don't understand all the fuss about the 18.5%. Most market commentators, and definitely most bloggers, seem to be off the opinion that a cut in VAT from 17.5% to 15% will have a negligible impact on the purse i.e. £1.25p for every £50 spent. Yet when this is reversed and we could see an increase to 18.5%, its the biggest and worst thing that could happen? Surely this cuts both ways. Either the reduction will help, in which case its a good move and needs to be paid for in the long term (with a reversal in VAT seeming a fair way to do this), or the cut won't make a difference, so the temporary cut and then increase (if it happens) don't matter.

@74

You wrote, its a question of whether you can stomach 5 more years of this bunch of liars and charlatans or try the other lot.....

Well i have been reading nick,s and prestons blogs for sometime now and think the people who write in have more of an idea on how a country should be run then the mupets that are in parliment now. they should form a goverment and lead the people. so much talent being wasted, while them who run our country waste us all.

There is a saying in Calcutta 'carefully careless' - may be ploy to leak the news that it is due anyway.

Also by claiming that till 2015 books cannot be balanced, in one sweep Brown?darling have covered up all their borrowings of previous years.

Prime Minister may say 'sweet nothings' like fuel costs would be reduced and so will energy costs but taxing fuel now and not taking any action on energy companies only shows that Labour cannot be trusted.

"Whistling_Neil wrote:

First the typo in the PBR.
The Tory leaning posters who have spent the last weeks informing us how utterly incompetent GB and AD are find it unreasonable that they made a cock up in proofing of a 200 page document which they no doubt changed with pencil margin notes dozens of times."

Typo? TYPO?

No, this wasn't a typo. It was a tax rise and they were keeping it quiet. It wasn't a typo!

The NuLab Spin Doctors are revolving at generating speeds today.

#62 CEH

I'm really disgusted that people in their position ignore real issues because they're so consumed with their own ambition.

So am I, Charles. Labour are the party of self-interest and you've just described them to a "T".

For anyone criticising the Conservatives for not saying what they would do in two years time, I suggest you look at your own finances then tell us what your financial position will be in two years time.

Are you sure you will have a job?

Will you have defaulted on your mortgage?

etc.

Todays news on VAT just backs up the fact that there is just too much we do not know to make any predictions that far ahead.

Too much is hidden away and not in the public demain.

The country is in a mess - all we have is hope and prayer.

Is Stephen Timms going to be sacked by Brown, he signed the official document !!!It would not be a bad thing as poor Mr Timms seems to be quite clueless and out of his depth when he appears in the media. He learns the official lines of the day and repeat them ad nauseam.
While Gordon is at it he would do well to get rid of Mrs Cooper Balls too ( on very nice income, double housing allowance and who knows a lot about the struggling families !! )She looses a few votes too everytime she is on the air !!
These Treasury ministers are either a bit economical with the bad news or even worse incompetent . Who is the last Labour minister who resigned for any of these two faults?
When they are being found out they send a poor junior minister to tell us it was a genuine mistake,pull the other one , show a bit more respect for the British public and voters!!
Can you imagine the Labour fury and their media reaction if the situation had been reversed.

Is this tantamount to fraud?

83 tom.........

No a move to 18.5%would matter.

It would occur when national insurance was punishing everyone on over £19000, thuis pushing up the price of many items at a time when your disposable income was stable or going down.

Result slowing down any possible recovery.

There is a great big black hole in the government's recovery figure - this would go some way to filling it.

It is very important.

The BIGGER question is what other tax rises were they planning that have been DELETED from the PB report?

Perhaps Nick or Robert could have a quiet word with "Deeprecessionthroat" on behalf of the nation?

I am really starting to get tired of all this now. I really dont see that this cut in VAT will help at all. What we needed was a different approach such as reducing income tax for the 13 months instead.

This would have put money directly in to the pockets of the people that politicians seem to forget put them in the position they enjoy.

Also, all you hear are the tories making noises about how this wont work and that wont work but I have yet to hear the ideas on what would work.

I think this is one of the times its better the devil you know. Just start being honest with the public.

#62 (CEH)

Just a reminder that it was Darling who said that the UK faced the worst economic conditions for 60 years. And for your information Labour have been in power for the last 11 years. But hey, it's all those wicked Tories' fault.

This whole situation is becoming very shameful.

We are facing the worst economic crisis in this country in living memroy.

We have an incompetent government, who have been in charge in the entire build up to this farrago.

They have been shamed into an emergency debate on the matter.

They have been lying, there is no better word for it, about the extent of the problem, the cause of the problem and now, it seems, a suitable cure for the problem.

You, Nick, have been complicit in this since, by your own admission, you were in possession of facts not known to our elected representatives before they should have been known.

Therefore you know who is the source of the information. We are only guessing, but I bet it's the same pair of people at the bottom of it. And bottom is a very apposite term.

As proof of their level of incompetence they allow an uncorrected error to get into the public domain. For a government that has responsibilty for so much lost personal data over the last two years it is only par for the course, and we aren't surprised. This time its them that's getting hurt, which is only fair.

The government, and many of their apologists, think it is reprehensible somehow for the opposition to oppose some of the governments actions, on the basis that it's for the good of the country.

We all know, from experience, that this lot will proceed to claim full credit for any improvement, and be quick to switch the blame onto "shared responsibility" if it all ends in tears.

If they had an ounce of decency and were prepared to accept responsibility for our plight, they would call an immediate election with the economic situation as the sole platform.

If they get a mandate to fix the problem, then everybody should fall in behind them. If not, move out and let somebody else solve the problem.

Do I expect Hugh Jeers and his cohorts to act honourably? I'm going for a win double on that and hell freezing over, where I understand that an investment of 1 million might produce enought to pay off all the national debt.

#93 mranderson

We've had the devil we know for the last 11 years and they haven't been honest wth us in all that time, so what makes you think they would change now?

Leave Nick alone! Don't shoot the messenger you idots!

Damned if you do, damned if you don't Nick.

You are lucky to have this forum - don't saw off the branch you are sitting on chaps!

Not a pretty sight to watch grown men not only completely out of their depth, but focused 100% on party political advantage. Cameron and Osborne fortunately will pay for this politically. The public knows that we are in a terrible mess and something needs to be done. The Tories won't fool them that Neville Chamberlain was right.

Yup. Simon Heffer sounds bullish (after lifting my material) but went down in flames during an interview, and was left scrabbling as he called Sweden the North Korea of Europe and clung to Switzerland (???) as an economic model. The Tories and their media pals are stretching a bit and it shows.

One thing some folks don't get is the uncontrolled city and greed undermined foreign investment and drove people out of the country. All the talk of brain-drain is just Tory scaremongering to cover up the costs of the Thatcher legacy. By using the crisis to focus on developing business and fairness Labour can reverse this trend.

Gordon Brown has a black belt in leadership. Osborne and Cameron don't, and it shows badly. It's why Gordon is leading the charge around the world and the Tories have boxed themselves in as day players. Yeah, I some mouths around here like to spin it differently but you can't buck reality.

I think Darlings statement saying "there are no CURRENT plans to raise VAT"says it all.

#67 SanchoP
"What this really shows is how desperate the Conservatives are becoming."

Hello, newbie. What a mild and measured first post. Think you got it wrong about who's becoming desperate, though.