That Budget is Crackers, Gromit!

Following the (unsurprising) budget announcements last Wednesday, there has been a great deal of debate as to whether it is a budget for the millions or for the millionaires, the effect of the supposed ‘granny-tax’ and heated divisions regarding the 50p tax rate.

However, there has been little talk of what the budget may mean for students and the younger generations, whose job prospects are bleak and whose applications are riddled with the ‘experience vs qualifications’ conundrum that blights so many in the 16-25 age bracket.

Indeed, the budget announcements appear to do little in the way of helping these frequently marginalised groups of society. So often do people talk of clichés that the young are the decision makers of tomorrow, and yet this truth does very little in our favour. In fact, the budget just serves to make us all the more cynical.

With the increase in the price of alcohol and cigarettes, no longer are the old havens of retreat safe: rather the stress-relief of students nationwide is in jeopardy of becoming another ill-affordable luxury. Alright, it may ensure a few less damaged livers and a couple of higher-capacity lungs, but these items symbolise a retreat from the embittered adult world that students sooner or later have to enter. So it stands to reason that many young adults may opt to still purchase the alcohol at the expense of proper foodstuffs. In an increasingly saturated graduate market, forgetting the misery of an ever more ‘worthless’ degree, spiralling debts and fewer job prospects is only facilitated by the odd pint or seven.

Besides, students will be all the more inclined to stay inebriated with the introduction of the pasty tax: no more sobering cheap foods to end the night out. That questionable imported meat, at questionable prices, that smells so aromatic at 3am will no longer linger around dorms the next day. Perhaps the next move would be to add extra taxes to beans and bread so as to capitalise off the staple beans on toast?

If sobriety sticks, the lonely nights in deliver the promise of, well, Wallace and Gromit, which is ever so entertaining and pivotal in the lives of 16-25 year olds. That’s smashing, Osborne (or crackers. Pick one).

However, rentals of everyone’s fave pooch inventor and his gullible owner may be all the pockets will stretch to with the freeze of minimum wage for 18-20 year olds. Of course, this decision follows the logic that with a stopper on increasing wages, more jobs will be created for the young people. Newsflash: The UK is back in recession. Scrap that last.

So dust off the old bottles of Jack for some measly measures that will hopefully make cartoon capers all the more appealing. Resounding cheers from the ‘enfranchised’ under-25s everywhere.

That is cheers from the under 25s when London is vandalised once again. Essentially, amidst the squashed bottom and the squeezed middle, there is the forgotten generation and this budget does little to help any of these groups. This is all the more concerning this week because inquests have ruled  overlooked families and youths as one of the key contributors to last year’s UK riots. And following this, some Westminster MPs decided that all of the above tax changes were a proper course of action. With growth in reverse and prospects for youths few, it’s no wonder this government is thought of as backwards.

At least we’re of a generation that deems the stamp irrelevant…

Work out the tax changes to your life here.