The Second UK Budget 2015.

Today the British Finance Minister George Osborne unveiled the national budget. I really wish he hadn't because while it would be nice to pretend that last night's drunken mayhem was the result of all the repressed trauma of the 7/7/05 terrorist bombings in London it wasn't. Over the past six days I've been working almost constantly on an issue that I find quite challenging. So by Sunday (5/7/15) I was already way past tired.

Fortunately there wasn't much substances to this budget. In fact with the last budget only being published 16 weeks ago you kind of get the impression that today's budget owed more to British attention seeking during Wimbledon fortnight then anything to do with economics.

In terms of the big issues of government borrowing and national debt Osborne is going to continue with the plan to gradually reduce both. This was the Labour Party plan that Osborne had imposed on him in around 2013 when it was revealed that his own plan of ending borrowing and rapidly shrink the national debt was silly. Rather then cutting spending Osborne will now be trying to achieve this goal by cutting down on tax avoidance and evasion. This includes scrapping "Non-Dom" status which is essentially a loophole that allows the very rich to pay no tax whatsoever. These have long been campaign issues for the Labour Party.

Osborne will also introduce a national "Living Wage" of GBP7.20 p/h. As this will be mandatory it really represents an increase in the national "Minimum Wage" from GBP6.70 p/h. Again this has long been a campaign issue for the Labour Party was actually one of their main manifesto pledges at the election.

On the issue of Britain's cherished National Health Service (NHS) the GBP12 billion pledged during the election has now shrunk to GBP10 billion. Looking at the people involved I still suspect that this money will be spent speeding up the privatisation of the NHS rather then improving patient care.

With there not really being any big news in the budget Osborne was forced to rely heavily on padding. For example he spent a lot of time talking about devolving powers to the English regions which has become known as the Conservatives "Northern Power House" policy. Dealing with the transfer of legislative and administrative powers this isn't really a financial issue. As such it only seems to have been included in the budget speech to - like the policy itself - stroke the egos of swing voters in key northern marginal seats.

Osborne also spent about a 10th of the speech talking about building memorials to British citizens killed in terrorist attacks abroad and a specific memorial to the victims of the June 26th (26/6/15) attack in Tunisia. Although if this is something the government is going to do then it is something it will have to budget for the sum involve - some GBP50 million - is so tiny in terms of a national budget it's the sort of thing that's normally a footnote in one of the annexes rather then given centre stage in the speech.

The purpose of it's inclusion here was to make us all afraid in order to justify an extra GBP1.5 billion being spent on the intelligence services. To my mind that doesn't give the intelligence services much incentive to stop grooming young Muslims to carry out acts of terrorism.

With Osborne essentially delivering the budget we would have got if Labour had won the last election Osborne also imposed lots of measures that reflect Conservative ideology. One of the main problems Labour have had is the Marxist wing of the party have this idea that the money people earn should be taken off them in taxes and then given back to them in benefits in order to make them dependent on the state and therefore the Labour Party. So for example to show the Conservatives libertarian credentials Osborne is freezing tax credits which are essentially a tax rebate for working parents but introducing free childcare for pre-school aged children and raising the threshold at which people start paying income.

Although the Conservatives like to overplay it here in the UK we have a social problem that was created by the economic policies of Marget Thatcher. Essentially there is a group of people who choose to live on benefits rather then work. In order to increase their benefit payments they have lots on children who in turn opt to live on benefits rather then work. To tackle this Osborne will be doing away with benefit payments to the third, fourth, fifth etc child. He's also reducing the cap on the total benefits a household can receive from GBP26,000 p/y to GBP20,000 p/y. This is controversial but with the average working household income being around GBP24,000 p/y it's hard to argue that it's unfair.

Osborne also transfered the cost of waiving BBC license fees for the over-75's from the government to the BBC. This is part of the Conservatives ideological battle with the BBC because prior to 2010 BBC news and politics programs have had this nasty habit of dealing in facts. Conservatives always find facts troubling.

Osborne also attempted to put forth Conservative ideology with a couple of policies that seem like attacks on me personally.

I'm currently doing a lot of work on global efforts to tackle climate change. This budget does away with a tax subsidy for renewable energy such as wind, tidal and solar power. This is actually a key issue withing climate change negotiations because due to it's small size and temperate weather many of these renewable sources aren't suitable for the UK. However having developed the technology the UK could still help tackle climate change globally by subsidising the transfer of these technologies to poorer nations where they are suitable. With Osborne saying that he is scrapping the subsidy specifically to prevent it being used to transfer the technology abroad he is making it abundantly clear that he doesn't agree with this solution.

The budget also freezes taxes on fuel, allows vehicles to be operated for 4 rather then 3 years without being tested for worthiness (including emission levels) and will scrap bands of vehicle taxes that see lower emitting vehicles paying less tax. Osborne also made clear that the vehicle tax will only be used to fund the road network encouraging more people to drive more.

Although vehicle emissions actually represent a small part of the total emissions it is an area that it's relatively easy to do a lot about. For example today's vehicles use far less fuel and emit far fewer greenhouse gases then they did even 10 years ago. This has largely been brought about by the type of policies that Osborne is doing away with.

He seems to be targeting vehicle use in particular in order to scare people who either rely on or really enjoy their vehicles out of taking wider actions on climate change that have absolutely nothing to do with vehicle use.

The most vicious part of the budget though was Osborne's attack on the sick and the disabled.

Here in the UK we essentially have two types of out of work benefits. There is unemployment benefit which is meant to function as a safety net for people who through no fault of their own are between jobs. Although it's supposed to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head it really is the bare minimum subsistence payment. Then there is disability benefit which is paid to people who may be highly intelligent, talented and motivated but are unable to work due to sickness or disability. These payments are intended to be higher then unemployment not only to cover the extra costs of dealing with a disability but also to provide a small quality of life. So while a person on unemployment would be expected to do away with their Internet subscription disability payments are supposed to cover this type of modest luxury.

What Osborne's done in this budget is to reduce the level of disability payments so they are paid at the same rate as unemployment. In doing this he's removed the entire concept of disability benefit that has been central to the British welfare state since it was set up some 70 years ago.

16:05 on 8/7/15 (UK date).