Budget Not Budget?

(Read on, or view here: https://youtu.be/y_m_NH4iBbs)

The next few days are going to be awkward for the government, and shocking for millions of people in need. That’s because the Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ so-called ‘spring statement’ will look like an emergency budget, heralding a return to austerity. And her claim on Wednesday that none of it is her fault will fall on largely deaf ears.

She’ll argue that a bit of belt-tightening can’t be helped when things have taken a turn for the worse, what with Donald Trump destabilising the world economy and making us spend more on defence.

But, whatever the reason, the growth that the government’s bet the farm on hasn’t materialised, and we as a nation are more strapped for cash than ever.

While that’s the verdict from the official number-crunchers, she’s set her face against papering over the cracks by borrowing more money to make up the shortfall.

And, try as she might to promise better times ahead, thanks to efficiency savings and greater use of artificial intelligence to make everything work better, the bottom line will be a bitter pill.

Last week’s announcement of five billion pounds lopped off the welfare bill was the biggest cutback since the then Tory Chancellor George Osborne launched his austerity drive fifteen years ago.

That came about thanks to a bunch of spivs in Wall Street causing a whole load of banks to crash. A not-so-gentle reminder that when America sneezes the world catches a cold. Then, as now.

We won’t know exactly who’ll be hit and how hard by the cutbacks until Reeves gives her spring statement this week.

Nor is there any certainty what further nasty medicine might be in store for other government departments. That’ll have to wait for the spending review in the summer.

But while health and defence budgets are protected, pretty well everywhere else could be looking at cuts of as much as eleven per cent. Not so much an ouch as a eek.

Meantime, it’s already clear that far fewer people will be able to get the main disability benefit, while the universal credit paid to jobseekers will be pared down.

There’s also a change in the rules designed to prevent young people going straight from school onto the dole by pleading sickness.

Osborne is one of the relatively few people who’s given the new arrangements a qualified thumbs up.

Which probably isn’t hugely helpful to the government. With friends like that, who needs enemies? Sort of.

Of course with Labour’s massive majority in parliament there’s not a lot anyone can do about it. But it’s said that as many as a hundred and fifty of the party’s MPs are queasy about what’s in store.

There’ve also been tense exchanges in cabinet. And, while top bod resignations aren’t on the cards this week, the possibility of more junior ministers quitting in protest is a runner.

But if they aren’t particularly happy bunnies down the Labour rabbit hole, they’re not the only ones.

The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, is being very careful to play down expectations for the town hall elections in a couple of months.

She’s right to stress that when the seats up for grabs were last contested her party was riding high, as their leader Boris Johnson was the blue-eyed boy.

Funny how things change. But the point is, they have. So loads of council seats are all but certain to change hands.

And that could signal trouble for Badenoch, whose only real policy announcement to date has been her ditching of the party’s promise to eliminate gas emissions by 2050.

This world-leading save-the-planet plan was the brainchild of Johnson’s predecessor at Number Ten, Theresa May, who’s been spitting nails about it being dumped.

Nor has it played well with the punters, as polls show a majority of them, including Tory voters, support the idea. A fair few Conservative MPs are also uneasy about the change.

No great surprise then that Badenoch’s performance to date hasn’t exactly played to favourable houses on her own side.

And the whispers are getting louder and louder that really bad results in the local elections could just be the trigger point for a serious move to biff Badenoch.

Alternatively, if Nigel Farage’s Reform Party does really well the idea of nudging up closer to him will become a talking point.

Not that that’s a racing certainty though, given that he and his former senior colleague Rupert Lowe are still busy tearing chunks out of one another. Never a good look.

But right now the Prime Minister’s far more interested in the not-so-civil war raging in Ukraine.

Donald Trump has mentioned that when he promised to end the fighting in twenty-four hours he was maybe being ‘sarcastic’.

Interesting turn of phrase, that. Suggests he’s got as scant a command of the English language as he often has of the facts that he so egregiously erroneously splatters around.

He and his acolytes. Cue the quote of the week, from his special envoy Steve Witkoff, when the Russians attacked Ukrainian energy infrastructure just after they’d promised not to.

‘I tend to believe that President Putin is operating in good faith.’ Really? Makes you wonder what planet these guys are on.

At least Keir Starmer is deservedly gaining plaudits for his leading role, both in bringing Trump and the Ukrainian President together and in marshalling a peace-keeping force.

He’s been busy discussing with European military top brass the nuts and bolts of how what he’s termed a ‘coalition of the willing’ would actually operate.

That’s contingent of course on there being a peace to be kept. All eyes are currently on the upcoming talks in Saudi Arabia between American and Russian officials.

But no one’s exactly holding their breath at this stage, given that everything Vladimir Putin’s ever said shows that to his mind Ukraine is part of Russia and there’s an end to it.

So, discredited though Boris Johnson may be in so many eyes, he was probably on the money when he said last week of the brute in the Kremlin: ‘He isn’t negotiating. He’s laughing at us.’

Not that anyone’s laughing about the possibility, however remote it might seem, that the fire in the lecky substation that closed Heathrow on Friday could have been the work of Russian arsonists.

Not like these guys don’t have form. But they’re generally pretty nifty at covering their tracks. So we’re unlikely to know anything definite for a fair old while yet.

That said, an unusual competition in New Zealand can’t help but draw a wry smile among those who see Putin and Trump as two peas in the same poisonous pod.

The blobfish, affectionately known as Mr Blobby, is now officially designated as the world’s ugliest animal.

About a foot long, it has a bulbous head and flabby skin, and lives in the deep sea, mainly off the south eastern coast of Australia, and Tasmania and New Zealand.

In its natural habitat it looks normal, but brought to the surface it has the face of the horridest, grumpiest and most heartless of nasty old men.

Remind you of anyone? Anyone?