Budget 2013

[biffvernon]

Statement from the Wildlife Trusts

Stephanie Hilborne OBE, Chief Executive of The Wildlife Trusts, said:

“Despite the fundamental importance of the natural environment to people’s lives, the Department in charge of looking after it has a tiny budget – that is hit incredibly hard with each spending review. The debate about the public forests has shown how important our natural assets are: people care passionately about their local woods and parks; and they are fundamental to the quality of our lives and our well-being. Nature is also of vast economic value - just £20m of Government money is invested in the public forest estate each year yielding economic benefits of over £400m per year.

“The case for a different approach is clear. For example, investment in job creation through environmental projects is an investment in our natural capital and in reducing our welfare bills. These are the kinds of new and innovative win-win ideas that the Government needs to grasp.

“Defra had to stomach unusually high budget cuts in 2011. Sadly these further cuts indicate a Government that does not understand the value of nature and its importance to our future prosperity.”

http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/news/2013 ... government

[Tarrel]

Penny off a pint! I shall be about 2p a week better of.

Oh hang on, the beer went up 20p in my local a couple of weeks ago.

Need to drink more beer. At 10 pints a night it's a saving of nearly three quid a month .

[RenewableCandy]

Need to drink more to cope with this fecking "government". Which is why I make my own.

[JohnB]

Need to drink more to cope with this fecking "government". Which is why I make my own.

You make your own government?

Here's a summary of the "green" bits of the budget
http://m.guardian.co.uk/environment/201 ... n-measures

You may notice it's rather more non green than green

[woodburner]

Government that does not understand the value of nature and its importance to our future prosperity.

Gideon Osborne only understands greed and money, oh, except when he got a incinerator planned in his constituency area refused. Everyone else is getting them though.

[clv101]

Th high rated comments here tell a story:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21881174

Seems quite a few people are seeing though the Help-to-Buy scheme.

[JohnB]

GEORGE Osborne has reassured Britain that the new housing boom he is trying to create will never, ever end.

The chancellor insisted that all the previous housing booms were fatally flawed, but that after a series of late nights, hunched over his desk, he had now perfected the system.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/ ... 3032163413

[woodburner]

Th high rated comments here tell a story:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21881174

Seems quite a few people are seeing though the Help-to-Buy scheme.

A quote from the link:

This is just another way of devaluing the currency - houses do not go up in value, it is just money losing value. With all countries wanting to devalue there are not many ways left to do it but this is one of them. Remember - we do not get rich by selling each other houses, just like we do not get rich by taking in each other's laundry.

Sums it up.

Then not everyone thinks Osborne is right http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21881007

[RenewableCandy]

28-y-o American PostGrad demonstrates Austerity was based on faulty maths!

I clicked on cell L51, and saw that they had only averaged rows 30 through 44, instead of rows 30 through 49.

They had also excluded data from Canada, New Zealand, and Australia — all countries that experienced solid growth during periods of high debt and would thus undercut their thesis that high debt forestalls growth.

OK so "growth" isn't the be-all and end-all and we should probably be looking at employment figures or something else instead, but it all goes to show how clueless people can be about running an economy. And that's before they're shown to be clueless (or otherwise) about energy.

[biffvernon]

Maybe Osborne was looked after by a child minder who had not passed GCSE maths.

[RenewableCandy]

Gah you just can't get the staff these days...

[biffvernon]

Some interesting points.

The HelptoBuy scheme is scary, public money will be available to support people with small deposits buy houses at large loan to value rates and 20% of the price of a new build property can be borrowed interest-free. This is fairly shocking support for house prices. What could possibly go wrong!

The interesting thing about clv101's post is that it is dated 20th March 1.31pm. The Chancellor had only just sat down.

The Treasury Select Committee has taken a month to come to the same conclusion.

See for example http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22214546

[RenewableCandy]

Yes, but there are more of them, so it takes time for them all to aggree. Also, beig Classics types, they probably can't add up (see news about maths above...).

[clv101]

Another month and someone else has realised how moronic Osborne's idea is:

George Osborne's Help to Buy scheme 'a moronic policy'
Leading analyst says chancellor's flagship scheme artificially inflates prices and drives the young into 'indentured servitude'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013 ... uy-moronic

[woodburner]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013 ... elp-to-buy

Output from the construction sector rose for the first time since last October, according to the Markit/CIPS UK construction PMI. The news coincided with the latest attack on the government's Help to Buy scheme, this time from the City analyst Albert Edwards, who branded it "moronic" and said it will burden young people with even more debt.

So that's alright then.