First…When Dick Nobinson called Hammond ‘Spreadshit Phil’ was he drunk, did he do it for a bet or was it purely a cynical joke to amuse his BBC buddies and those in Labour who wanted Robinson to be their PR guru? I’m guessing the last one.
Now to the main issue, the BBC’s so-called reporting of the Budget. The BBC’s top economic editor, Nihal, speculated that Hammond was vilifying the self-employed, calling them cheats who were dodging paying their full whack. Great journalism…based on what exactly? The BBC’s reporting has been a very low budget affair that seems very light on facts…one crucial fact that went missing was the reason Hammond increased NIC’s for the self-employed…and indeed have been using a clip from Labour’s John McDonnell claiming that the self-employed have got absolutely nothing back…the BBC provided no counter-voice to that clip. Kind of surprising really as Hammond stated the reason quite plainly in his budget speech….the self-employed now get the full state pension and will get further benefit entitlements later on…not only that but their NICs will still not be at the same level as employed people’s and they are in fact having some contributions reduced…didn’t hear that at all on the BBC all day…..until Tory Bernard Jenkins mentioned it and was immediately shut down and the subject changed by the presenter….which is a bit odd…the absolutely crucial point about the NIC increase and the BBC doesn’t want to talk about it…..from the speech……
An employee earning £32,000 will incur between him and his employer £6,170 of National Insurance Contributions. A self-employed person earning the equivalent amount will pay just £2,300 – significantly less than half as much.
Historically, the differences in NICs between those in employment and the self-employed reflected differences in state pensions and contributory welfare benefits.
But with the introduction of the new state pension, these differences have been very substantially reduced.
Since 2016 self-employed workers now build up the same entitlement to the state pension as employees, a big pension boost to the self-employed.
The most significant remaining area of difference is in relation to parental benefits, and I can announce today that we will consult in the summer on options to address the disparities in this area as the FSB and others have proposed.
Mr Deputy Speaker, The difference in National Insurance Contributions is no longer justified by the difference in benefits entitlement.
The abolition of Class 2 NICs for self-employed people, announced by my predecessor in 2016 and due to take effect in 2018, would further increase the gap between employment and self-employment…. from April 2018, when the Class 2 NIC is abolished, the main rate of Class 4 NICs for the self-employed will increase by 1% to 10%, with a further 1% increase in April 2019.
The combination of the abolition of Class 2 and the Class 4 increases I have announced today, raises a net £145m a year for our public services by 2021-22, an average of around 60p a week per self-employed person in this country.
The BBC was more interested targeting the Tories for breaking their election manifesto promise and Emma Barnett wanted to know if this makes you lose your trust in politicians. Curiously not at all interested in the fact that the budget is not the Remain camp’s ‘Project Fear’ budget that promised to grind us into the ground with an emergency austerity budget to save us from the perils of Brexit…how is it the BBC is not interested in that broken political pledge?
Barnett had a couple on from the FT and the Huffington Post to discuss the budget…both lefty remain supporting rags…naturally they demanded an election as the manifesto promise was broken…..this would suit the Remain camp, as John Major’s like-minded demands illustrate, as most MPs are Remain and would, when re-elected then claim they were elected as Remainers…and thus had a mandate to crush Brexit. So will the BBC be asking if such dishonest, corrupt, anti-Democratic shyster politicians have our trust? No, don’t be silly.
It wasn’t so long ago, when we were having the referendum and it was noted that Leave voters [and of course Trump voters] had no faith in the political class, that the BBC decided we now had to respect and trust politicians…or we’d have more Jo Cox’s…..odd how, now the referendum is over and Trump elected, the BBC goes back to its normal mantra of Politicians are all liars and cheats….well, Tory ones. No such questions of betrayal of democracy when the SNP says it wants another independence referendum, in fact today the BBC is peddling the SNP’s propaganda that another referendum is just common sense…no, it’s not…it’s corrupt and anti-democratic….Brexit has nothing to do with ‘Scotland’…it’s a ‘British’ issue and ‘Scotland’ voted to stay in ‘Britain’.
Only now, after a day of fact-free disparagement of the Budget do we start to get an inkling that things may not be a bad as they are being painted. Have to say, to be fair to the BBC, the likes of the Mail, and indeed some of the usual dumb, bovine, self-harming Tory MP’s, are doing a splendid job of creating a tremendous fuss about nothing and seem to be intent on doing a better job of opposition than the lack-lustre Corbyn.
I heard the “spreadshit” comment, and it was indeed deliberate in my opinion, just like the number of times Jeremy Hunt’s name came out as “cunt”. Such fun.
But forget that for a moment. Mr Hammond’s excuses have no merit. Another “cast iron” election pledge has been broken. The election was only in 2015, and they all stood on the same manifesto.
For me, the real kick in the teeth is the reduction in the tax free dividend allowance from £5000 to £2000. This was only brought in a year ago after Gideon Osborne changed the basis of dividend taxation without any consultation at all. Now even this has been slashed. How are savers and retired people meant to plan for the future if the basis of taxation is changed radically three times in three years?
The way I feel at the moment, “spread shit” seems like a very apt description of a Chancellor who has no vision, no depth and no bloody clue.
Rob ,
It is impossible for any of us to plan for the future when we are ” Governed” by such useless idiots. Almost all politicians are cretins, with just a few exceptions.
I thoroughly enjoyed the BBC’s budget coverage. I switched Radio 4 on when the chancellor rose and switched it off when he sat back down again. Just the right amount of analysis from the Upper Sixth for me ie zero.
Trust the BBC to get it wrong on everything it touches, The BBC seems to be suffring from its usual delusions that being the BBC it thinks it is untouchable and that it can continue to bite the hand that feeds and dosent realise that
#1 We might elect a government that will be happy to put the BBC in its place thus leading to #2
#2 The BBC’s next director general might be someone like murdoch or someone similar leading to #3 and #4
#3 The licence fee will be scrapped and the BBC will have to take advertising
#4 The licence fee will be scrapped and the BBC will then be forced to encrypt its propaganda and be paided for by subscription by those who still want the BBC in their lives
this will then lead to
#5 the BBC having a massive economy drive in order to survive in the real world as the BBC is then forced to compete against the professional broadcasters or {hopefully like the dinosaur the BBC is} die and I for one wont miss the BBC
Just sense that th BBC see themselves as being more about the entertainment than the truth.
There are no journalistic standards any more as long as the O`Briens, Davis, Kuennnsbergs, Mairs and O`Connells are concerned. Not funny enough for satire-but to much a joke for any effort to do news. Johnny Dymond a while back on TWATO With Mother Martha finished them for me.
Go to Trumps America, RT and AlJaz nowadays for anything factual.
Left student politics and Stuff the Falklands types back in the 80s-this new crop of blockheads need to get of the BBC before they turn into Giles Fraser or Jimmy Savile.
Spreadshit Phil? Hate speech! have Nick Robinson prosecuted!
Martin,
I think that Toenails has mental health problems .
PS I think that Beeboids are now competing with each other to see who can be the most offensive and biased. It is a good sign because it will alienate so many people. Beeboids are so stupid !
‘Alienate so many people’…… Do you really think they care ? They have been alienating those who are right of center since the 60’s and they do not give a damn as they know that the lily livered right wing politicians will smile with a sickly grin as the BBC journalists disrespect and denigrate them and their Conservative values as they equally disrespect those license fee payers who democratically voted for and elected a Conservative government. It is not only Muslims whose mantra is ‘Democracy go to Hell !!!!’.
Dusseldorf axe attack: ‘Suspects on the run’ after several injured at German train station
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/777274/dusseldorf-terror-man-axe-rampage-people-injured-train-station-germany
Businesses like consistency and fear uncertainty. At least a crummy omnishambles budget every year is therefore disappointingly consistent and, presumably by that logic, good for UK PLC.
My cartoon take on it:
ScottishCalvin,
LOL ! Another beauty ! One of your best, I think.
Cheers Grant, it’s nice to know that people get as much fun out of watching them as I do making them each week! Feel free to share the link, or click Subscribe to get them fresh after Andrew Neil finishes his programme and I finish my wine
SC,
Will share. Would love to subscribe but so many commitments at the moment.
Remember, many of the BBC champagne Socialists use private companies to reduce their tax bills. They are going to have to pay more tax, and they do not like it. That is why they are making such a fuss.
I seem to recall, but haven’t had time to check my facts, that there was a court case before Xmas involving Uber drivers and whether they were deemed to be employees or self-employed?
As I recall (and I need to check) the court found that although they were acting as if self-employed they were in fact employees in all but name.
Now, zipping forward a few months, the Chancellor has come up with some measures to address the changing employment circumstances that can be found with the arrival of the gig-economy, of which Uber is a part.
The BBC (and others) conveniently forget this.
It should also be noted that large parts of the media, including BBC staff, act in a self employed capacity. So there is an unstated conflict of interest in their reporting as many are directly impacted by the proposed changes.
Who is Joe Soap on the No9 bus to believe?
Institute for Fiscal Studies was quoted time and again as though they were an impartial or even governmental organisation . No other body was brought in to comment .
I believe that at least the IFS says that the proposed, now stuttering, NI changes would redress a clear anomaly in the level of contributions between employed and self-employed. Even Sky got the message last night and showed they will still pay less.
Remember as well as the new pension and the NHS, our self-employed are, like the Romanian Big Issue seller with 3 kids, entitled to WTC and HB and social housing (latter if they qualify), even when their GROSS income is only £100 pw, as hers was, on which NO NI is payable. You, and more importantly I, make up her generous lifestyle with top-ups.
10am Radio Troll* Emma Barnett
“Another day of the Tories being CRISIS** ..blah, blah, blah … are you thinking of leaving the party ?”
** Crisis? Is she using the word in a PR trick way ? I don’t like the Tories, but they are certainly not in crisis.
*Troll = say absolutely ridiculous things to wind people up.
Thank you for clarifying the point about the self employed now building up credits to the new state pension level.
Surprised none of the bright sparks pointed out that MILLIONS OF PEOPLE HAVE ALREADY HAD AN NI CONTRIBUTIONS INCREASE since 2015 caused by the abolition of the contracted out rebate from April 2016 in return for – wait for it, building up credits to the new state pension!
It will of course be a blow to those “employed” at the BBC as service companies – so surely no tears for them.
All rather a storm in a tea cup?
An interesting comment I heard elsewhere which doesn’t seem to have been covered on this thread, is the number of independent ‘journalists’ ‘working’ on behalf of the BBC who are self employed and therefore directly affected by this NI change.
Now we know why they are so quick to gob off about government spending, it’s because they aren’t paying the same kind of PAYE taxes as everyone else !
Paying National Insurance contributions on as little as £8k entitles a person to 1 year of state pension( approx £220 ) which would cost a private sector work £8000 to buy as an annuity.
As I understand it, the self-employed now earn this right for the sake of a small NI increase, at nothing like the true cost of the benefit.
So the indignation about this announcement is totally lost on me.
Can I just mention my situation re. NI contributions.
I worked in the City, Private Sector, full stamp, Contracted In for 14 yrs. Left to have family.
5 yrs later started work in education and was automatically Contracted Out as a public sector worker.
Last April 2016 this scheme was abolished for Public Sector Workers. No more reduced stamp.
Due to my great age I do not now have enough qualifying years to receive a full State Pension on retirement.
My beef is that I live in a very low wage area so my Private Pension won’t amount to much.
Even though since April last year I’ve been paying in excess of £14 a month more in NI contributions and will do so until I receive my reduced State Pension in 4 years time. I am one of thousands, especially women I think.
Therefore GET OVER IT SELF EMPLOYED people who have very healthy tax free expenses and pay little tax. Rant over.
How many of the BBC’s current news editors are white males?