George Osborne's budget

On Wednesday the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced the Conservative budget for the coming financial year, and I am saddened by it, but not shocked, given how the Conservatives have proved themselves to be over the last five years. There were protests in London, Bristol and in other parts of the UK, and unfortunately on this occasion I was unable to attend any.

I'm not going to summarise the complete speech (it's here if anyone would like to take a look) but I have to say there was very little that I actively agreed with. Rather a lot of it made me feel quite nauseous, and there were a few things that I didn't understand fully and I would rather not comment on, but from experience I daresay will not in time prompt me to leap in the air with happiness.

There is far too much that I have something to say about to go into detail about on one blog, so I'm going to focus particularly on the impact that the new budget is likely to have on young people. The proposals that have been put forward include the following:

• Young people will not be included in the new compulsory living wage, which only people aged 25 and up will be eligible for.
• Under-21s will not be eligible for housing benefit.
• Education maintenance grants are being replaced by loans.
• Jobseekers' allowance is being replaced by a youth obligation scheme (commonly referred to as 'earn or learn') which requires young people to be in paid employment or education, despite the fact that the situation with tuition fees and grants makes it harder for those from less well-off backgrounds to attend University, and paid employment being hard to come by. (Osborne says that young people will be supported in finding apprenticeships, traineeships and the like, but I think that realistically this 'support' will most likely take the form of ultimatums and threats from Job Centres, in exactly the same way that it has done in recent times.)
• Families who have more than two children will not be eligible for child benefit for the third one and onwards.
• Tuition fees could potentially rise even further (admittedly I do n't recall seeing that in the budget itself, but I have read about it in other news sources and it would not surprise me one iota. And even if this one turns out to be false, the way that tuition fees are at the moment is problematic enough without adding more fuel to the fire.)

This article from the New Statesman highlights things to a greater extent, not just for young people but for many other vulnerable groups negatively affected by these proposals.

Being a young person myself, it would be easy to look at this situation very emotively, but I am going to take a step back from that and try to view this in as objective and rational a standpoint as I can. Not even taking into account the lack of empathy that this shows, it seems to me that if the aim is to reduce the deficit, this is not a very good way of doing so. It is such a cliche to say that 'young people are the future', but to me is does seem patently obvious that if we want to invest in securing our economy and sustaining our planet for subsequent generations, it would be quite a good idea to start with the generations that are taking that up. I suppose you could argue that these proposals will not hit every young person hard - the children of rich people will do very well out of it! And I daresay will go on to be the people in power, thus continuing this catch-22 situation that we find ourselves in.

I feel strongly that there has to be a better way to do this. I'm no economist (in fact I have issues with dyscalculia) but I would argue that it has been proven over quite a long period of time that a low-tax society simply does not work. In the aftermath of World War II, Britain had high taxes as a result of having to bail out the USA, and we managed to create a great welfare system and the NHS. In this day and age, I can't see how our recession is any different to what was going on in the 1940s, except that we seem to be completely incompetent in doing anything about it, and to be honest I question whether those in power are even trying. After all, they personally do not seem to have been damaged very much at all, and given the additional fact that our Conservative Government do not seem especially committed to protecting our climate and keeping Planet Earth liveable on for humans, I am drawn to no other conclusion but that they are focussed on themselves living an enjoyable lifestyle in the here and now, without any consideration either for how others live nor for anyone who occupies this planet after they have left it.

I myself happen to be in quite a fortunate position. I'm young enough to still be part of the generation that I refer to, but I'm old enough that I've just about missed out on most of the worst parts of it (I'm from a reasonably well-off household (which is not the same as being rich, I'm still eligible for grants), I went to sixth form before EMA was scrapped, I'm already at University with my grant without having to worry about loans, I know what I want to do with my life... What can I say, I'm lucky enough that I've been dealt a good hand in this life, which I try very hard not to take for granted. There is a wonderful article by Polly Toynbee that perfectly describes the unfortunate situation of a young man named Perry (I'm not sure if that is his actual name or a pseudonym for the article). These articles are depressing, and I think it would be very easy for me to mentally brush over that sort of thing and just focus on myself. I cannot justify that to myself morally, and I think that it is important for us to remember those less fortunate, and to extend a hand of friendship.

There are a lot of very informative articles on what is happening in this country and the world, which I read, and they normally depress me. My blog aims to be slightly different, in that I try to offer words of hope and encouragement as well. I'm a complete idealist, but I do still feel positive about making a progressive difference out there. I suppose that is why I write - you can write to depress yourself, or you can write naively to convince yourself, but I try to strike a balance there, to keep in mind everything that is going on and then work with what I have to change it.

As I mentioned, I was unable to attend the demonstrations on Wednesday, but I was told from someone who was there that noisemaking devices were confiscated as the protest was illegal because Westminster had not approved it (this is another foolish catch-22 situation - if Westminster needs to approve protest, what is the point of protest?) As far as I am aware, the next demonstration is in October, but if anything comes up sooner I will write about it on here, or if I have the time and cause to organise one myself, I shall.

Thanks for reading, further updates soon.

UPDATE: Since publishing this, a friend and occasional colleague of mine clarified to me that the tuition fee rise comes from allowing them to rise with inflation, not a direct rise. This was something that admittedly had passed me by at the time I read the budget.