Rishi looks risky

[srb7677]

Well, it has already been announced that the living wage - a de facto minimum wage for the over 25s - is going to increase to £9.50 p/h in April. Fact is, my hourly rate at Tesco is only 5p above that.

I have to give credit where it is due. Since about 2015 the Tories have been hiking minimum pay by far more substantial percentages than New Labour ever did, as well as raising the basic rate tax threshold. If this keeeps up in subsequent years, the living wage seems set to catch up with, and force up, my pay.

These are not measures anyone would have associated with the Tories in the 80s, 90s or naughties. It is just the sort of thing Labour should have done but didn't. I take note of this. Clearly the Tories recognise that they have achieved massive backing from a working class which Labour neglected, and want to retain that backing. Labour's promise of a tenner an hour minimum wage now looks very unambitious when it is soon going to be only 50p below that already.

Labour is triangulating itself away from so many of the struggling millions in the interests of affluent metropolitan middle class liberals, whilst the Tories are cleverly outflanking Labour on their left in policy areas likely to be popular with working class voters.

At the moment I have to say that the Tories seem to be grappling and responding to the political and social realities of 2021, whilst those running Labour seem trapped in a timewarp circa 1997. Starmer probably thinks Oasis, Blur and the Spice Girls are still topping the charts, .

[Borchester]

Mmm perhaps but we need a constructive budget this time and so far I'm not convinced.

Constructive how?

Half the country has been running around like blue bummed flies because a few oldies have popped their clogs and demanded that the government piss away the public finances like drunken sailors who have won the national lottery. And now you are whining because the bills are coming in.

There is no way Rishi can come up with a constructive budget. Folk will bellyache whatever he does. So he will go after the softest targets. Probably the unemployed. No one gives a toss about them and they are unlikely to vote Tory anyway

[T00ts]

I always think the budget is like the January sales a lot of hype about a lot of tat and people think they're getting a good deal and they're not.

Mmm perhaps but we need a constructive budget this time and so far I'm not convinced.

[cromwell]

I can't help but feel that Rishi is looking like a risk. Apart from angering the Speaker of the House by leaking details of the budget' to the media he is just a bit slippery for me and I am not absolutely sure why. The details on his budget I have read so far seem odd. He has muttered about having spent so much during Covid but seems to be letting rip with inflationary measures.  Perhaps when we get the whole package and not just the giveaways, the mood will be different but if I'm honest I am already sick of the photo opportunity shindigs and the manoeuvres to make him look like future PM material. I don't think he would get my vote.

I always think the budget is like the January sales a lot of hype about a lot of tat and people think they're getting a good deal and they're not.

[T00ts]

I can't help but feel that Rishi is looking like a risk. Apart from angering the Speaker of the House by leaking details of the budget to the media he is just a bit slippery for me and I am not absolutely sure why. The details on his budget I have read so far seem odd. He has muttered about having spent so much during Covid but seems to be letting rip with inflationary measures.  Perhaps when we get the whole package and not just the giveaways, the mood will be different but if I'm honest I am already sick of the photo opportunity shindigs and the manoeuvres to make him look like future PM material. I don't think he would get my vote.