People have Unreasonable Expectations

I am afraid that this blog is going to be somewhat dominated by the forthcoming General Election as the politicians make my blood boil, particularly this scurrilous crowd who call themselves a government. But in some ways we get the government that we deserve.

Throughout the winter there has been huge concern about the state of the National Health Service and the related social services on which they are dependent. Everybody was agreed that the Health Service was under resourced and would need continuing funding in excess of inflation over the next few years. The Liberal Democrats at their recent conference rightly wanted to spend more money on that Cinderella of services Mental Health. Labour has declared that they want reduce the dependency of people on food parcels.

The common denominator of all of these is that they cost money, and in governmental terms the only way of raising money is by raising taxes or cutting services elsewhere. I suppose that the economists amongst my readers, a rare breed, would also say that the government could borrow more.

So in tomorrow’s budget what is one of the headline items trailed for tomorrow’s budget? A reduction in inheritance tax, now I believe that only fifty thousand estates a year are subject to inheritance tax, they have to be worth more than £750,000 per year and that is assuming that no estate planning has taken place in advance. It is rumoured that the change will cost £1 billion and take twenty thousand estates out of the tax bracket. That is twenty thousand of people who will stand to inherit around £1 million pounds. If we have to prioritise it is obvious that we actually do not want better services but tax benefits for the already very rich. So if you re-elect this government do not complain when you have poorer services, but hey twenty thousand wealthy people will have more money.

It is time that we realised that the collective good is worth fighting for.