The 'real world' is that we pay vast fortunes to second rate footballers (who seem somewhat relived they scraped through today's match)and way too much to the big bosses in the form of disgusting and unearned bonus payments. This country could sort itself out in no time if there was just a bit more shift in the distribution of wealth. The cuts are not necessary in the savage way they have been implemented. Like the IFS say they are 'regressive'. Labour had a proper plan to recover which would not have crucified the less well off in such a merciless way. Perhaps its those who can't see the bigger picture who need to remove those blinkers?

Absolute rubbish Beak! 'Everyone has taken a cut'. oh yes the likes of Rooney earning a basic club salary of £90,000 per week, he's sure to feel the pinch. Should you not forget; since the recession the economy had stated to recover. That was through progressive implementation of anti-recessionary measures designed to keep people in their jobs and homes. I work with the less well off and I can tell you they are dramatically worse off, you are naive to think they are not! Watch the Cameron n Clegg puppets face the music this evening, not exactly a happy crowd of contented people I can tell you! Don't defend what's morally and economically wrong!

This is painful. The deficit reduction plan is 80% spending cuts, 20% tax increases. No doubt this would have been mainly tax increases if Brown had remainded in office. Rather the majority done in spending cuts than tax rises - is that better for you?

As for your other post. Yes the recovery may have begun but until the deficit is tackled we will always be susceptible to the markets. We may see slow growth over the next 2 years but the benefits will be seen in the latter term if the parliament. Until we get a handle on the mess created by Labour we can not hope to recover fully. Clearly you would like to squeeze the rich to breaking point which will only result in a slow down of the econmomy as the wealth creators clear off. Politics of envy? Everyone has been hit by the cuts but look to the Labour party for the blame.

Your rather pathetic attacks on Cameron and Clegg show that, like Harriet Harman yesterday, your opinion is based on political dogmna rather than economic argument.

It rather depends on whether those people are in work in the public or private sector. When government spending is nearly 50% of the economy this will never lead to the growth required to pay off the deficit. The private sector needs to fill the gaps left by the reduced state. You can not just magic jobs for the people through governent spending then claim record low employment. So no it isn't that simple that you just tax the rich "until their pips squeak" That does not work. This budget has hit everyone but mainly the top earners. There is nothing nice about what is happening but this is what has been left by the previous government.

If the welfare system has no faults how is it in a decade of boom years, costs have risen 45%? This is the exact point of when they should have fallen. There is something fundamentally wrong when this is occuring.

Clem, well said, that's a gem!

So, Beak, please help the small business owner outside of London understand how 20% VAT will help him survive in the months January-March 2011, when there is less cash and little tourism around.

Oh and please do not tell me that all we need do is hang on until 2012 - as that will only benefit Hotels, Bars and restaurants within the M25.

Any fool can see that a better system for VAT would be varying rate groups for different products and services (as you see on the continent), but you free marketeers do so love your flat rate taxes dont you?

You are backing a Government that has stated that "We are all in this together", both during and after the general election, I dont find it to be pernicious to take it that you implicitly support such a position?

The trouble with all this talk of "bashing the rich", is that it takes no account of the 25-odd year tax holiday that the rich and super-rich have taken since the early 1980s worldwide.

Instead of reasonable and fair taxation, we have seen indirect taxation rocket - hitting those with least to spend most. It has then often been the lower middle classes who has been burdened next across the western world.
We now have a situation in which the very rich will pay some, but the super rich virtually nothing, in contribution to the societies that support them.
Many have talked about reforming welfare, but the stark truth is that whilst the rich got richer, and the poverty gap widened, it was welfare that was used to either plug the gap, or stave off any unrest(if you are the paranoid kind). After all, post 1985, the unions had been beaten, so let them wither.

It was this cynical monetarist(or was it just plain conservative?)
policy that lead to the 2dependancy culture", and tyo the awful sight of long term unemployed living cheek by jowl with young low-paid workers from central and eastern Europe, puzzled at the locals' lack of work ethic.

Beak, you are right on two counts - my typing and my disgust. i apologise for my typos, it has been a long day.
I left the Labour Party in 1996, as I felt that New Labour would leave too much of the essence of Thatcherism untouched. It gave me absolutely no pleasure to be proved right. I rejoined on May 6th this year, after somewhat belatedly realising that you only get the parties and politics you are willing to fight for.
At the moment, our income tax system in general squeezes more out of the middle, rather than the rich. To be honest who are we talking about when we say that an increase in the top rate of tax, or additional rates (which I would prefer) would be punitive?
Yes the country has borrowed too much, but please, the UK is not alone in this.
Also, whith the destruction of our manufacturing base, we are left with a service- based economy, which since the mid-1980s has needed both state and personal credit to continue its growth. When you accept, as both the Conservatives and New Labour did for most of the last 17 years, that this is the only game in town, then it is hard to see the bare faced vitriol pouring from the Government for a situation that at the time they basically agreed with.

In relation to the welfare question, one factor which is no doubt contributory to increased expenditure is the increased mortality rate of today and the fact that many people are thankfully surviving from illnesses which they wouldn't have done in days gone by; this has a resultant effect on increased claims. Many people are now working whilst disabled (mainly because of the DDA) and it is the various disability elements in tax credits which account for increased expenditure.

Another area of additional expense is that related to many more informal 'carers' who claim Carer's Allowance providing the person being cared for is in receipt of a qualifying benefit. Care in the community has replaced previous longer term hospitalisation and residential care. Many patients are discharged much more quickly to their homes and are thus able to claim benefits which they would not previously have been entitled to claim (as they recover at home rather than in hospital)

The more expensive claims are generally related to higher degrees of disabled severity, the degree of scrutiny is high in cases so I don't think half as many people are abusing the system in the way it is being portrayed.

Labour, in fairness did a lot on welfare reform. The introduction of Employment Support Allowance has toughened up the process, similarly lone parent claims have been getting progressively tougher in reducing the age where a claimant can say they have to stay at home to look after their children. None the less we should be careful to avoid a situation where we create a 'latch key kid' society.

It should also be borne in mind than there have been many cross party agreed campaigns to ensure claimants are receiving what they are justly entitled to. Many people are not claiming what they could; a factor all too readily overlooked.

The Tories were always very behind welfare expenditure in cross party / hansard debates (see my various posts elsewhere) so it seems to me that it is very wrong that they are now sticking the knife into the genuinely disabled. Unfortunately the new wave of privatised health care contractors will profit out of the huge number of claimants they will be contracted to review under DWP targets initiated by the Secretary of State.

The reform of the welfare state is no where near as straightforward as the image portrayed by the media over its citing examples of how practically every single severely disabled claimant is really faking it and can be found climbing up and down ladders on a window cleaning round whilst they are not waiting for a DWP claimant compliance officer to call!

During the election the Tories promised to reduce the 0.5% increase in employers national insurance as a tax on jobs.

Following today's budget - this has not been reduced (Budget 2010 Press Notice 2) and a full 1% increase is in operation from April 2011.

I suppose this is all down to the" black hole" in the nation's finances.

Is one alone in thinking VAT should be expanded in scope ? (children's clothing, food, printed matter).
Providing they help out us 'scroungers' at the same time !

Wow, you nearly made it through an article without mentioning David Miliband.

Not quite though.

I see know why the BBC had a 1980'S season when this 'Government' got in.
Cheers Gideon.

Looks like the Tories have hung Britain out to dry, with a bit of help from the Lib Dems. Did Cameron really say read my lips? An absolute disgrace VAT up, unemployment up and NI up.

What a despicable bunch of politicians we have in this coalition of misery. Obsborne has showed how inept he is at understanding the effect his cuts will have on actually saving money. Clegg and Cameron just looked on, shamefaced at times. It was good to see Harriet Harman vent her furry; for all that she said was true.

The so called cuts on Disability Living Allowance(DLA) are nothing but a farce. It was the Tories who set the entitlement conditions for DLA in 1992. In practice what will happen is that thousands will be medically examined by so called 'health care' professionals paid for by the profiteering privatised health care organisation ATOS. Thousands will appeal against the medical findings of doctors and nurses who can't get a proper job within a decent caring health profession. Thousands will appeal to costly appeal Tribunals with a consequently huge increase in expenditure; not to mention the cost of representation by organisations acting on behalf of the aggrieved claimant and the DWP trying to defend their ill founded decisions. The Tribunals are already stretched to the limit with thousands appealing against unjust Employment Support Allowance determinations. None of this will save money, it will cost money!

This coalition is incompetent beyond belief, you only have to listen to the babbling fool Lawson who advised Osborne on how to implement his very first budget,what idiot would listen to him given his appalling record as chancellor!

It leaves me rather confuzzled that the Tories are made out to be such a cruel party because of the very necessary measures taken today.

It was Labour and Gordon Brown that ignored the warnings over the housing boom, and actively encouraged it so banks would lend to people who couldn't afford the mortgages so Labour didn't have to invest in social housing. They also encouraged the banks to give people cheap credit to pretty much everyone regardless of whether they could afford it in the long run. This also helped to create the illusion amongst the general public that they were better off under Labour, which in reality they weren't as more people were in debt which means they were poorer.
Also, by encouraging the banks to lend easy credit to individuals, this meant there was less money to lend to businesses, so we had to import more and the economy came to rely more and more on financial services industry, which means we're suffering more than most developed countries as our biggest industry by far has gone bust.

I don't see how this kind of witchcraft economics based on lies and tricks to create the illusion that we're doing better than we really are is any better than what the Conservatives are doing now or have done in the past.

I don't believe that the socialist ideal of universal benefits is progressive the poorest in society get less money just so the middle and upper classes get benefits to help create a sense of "unity", so I'm pleased that benefits for the wealthy will be cut and there are measures to help the very poorest. Unfortunately many people will have a tough time over the next five years. But I don't blame this government for that, I blame the last one.

I am sorry but you can not try and pin this on the Tories. That is laughable. This is down to, parttly the world wide recession but exasperated by Labour's irresponsible spending. First in recession, last out when we should have been best placed. While public spending makes up nearly 50% of the economy how can we ever hope to recover? Some people on here don't think we need to cut anything which is just fantasy. The cuts are never going to be popular but they are necessary.

A turn of phrase. I support any government that Is attempting to get us out of this financial mess created by the last lot. Take your blinkers off and join the real world.