Desolation of Smug

I suppose Rachel Reeves played a blinder with the budget. At least it wasn't as comprehensively leaked as the last few by the Eton boyz. Of course there's a few attention grabbers, but the big play is attempting to sweep up the desolation of Smug left by the last lot.

And we see the sly boys and girls playing the markets in its wake. They are simply gambling and messing up everything for the rest of us. 28-30 is the entry age, and it seems that 2 years in business is the typical requirement. Safe hands? eh?
 

But back to the budget...I see that a few things like car tax on electric vehicles didn't get mentioned, yet I received the notification a day before the budget that I've got to pay road tax again from next year. And that fossil fuel tax for cars is being held down again. Not exactly electro-friendly.

Don't get me started on fiscal drag which is 'only' set to last until around 2030. I'd always envisaged that the rise in personal allowance would compensate for essentially a fixed income, but no, that's another source ready to plunder.

There's shenanigans around the employer tax too, which affects smaller businesses. If I still had my company I'd be paying an extra £650 employer contribution per annum or so. Hmm, makes me reconsider if I should restart it again, for my book writing. The interesting aspect is that pensioners are now being pickpocketed. I can't tell you how distressing it is to get those big extra tax bills at the end of the year. 

You could say it's a 'nice problem to have', but I can't help thinking how I scrimped and saved to have retirement income, only to see the government wasting it on frivolous schemes and subsidising big projects like nuclear submarines - oh no - wait - that was the last lot.