We’re not prepared to wait until 2018

The Chancellor was pretty full of himself today as he talked at length about the government’s “‘achievements” in his Budget speech.  To the usual background of cheers and jeers, he recited the same old mantras about being “all in it together” and things getting better for all. 

It wasn’t just what the Chancellor said that was worrying – it was what he didn’t say that sent alarm bells ringing.  

It was amazing how quickly he managed to skate over his plans for more hard decisions, more cuts – cuts lasting long into the new Parliament.  And those hard decisions are aimed at UNISON members – public service workers in hospitals, schools, charities, police stations, universities, town halls and beyond, who spend their working lives looking after our children, caring for the sick and elderly, keeping our streets safe and clean and delivering vital services in their communities. 

He swept past without a thought about the impact that those cuts are having on families across the UK, as if they have nothing to do with him.  

And that is true in many ways, as he has no idea of what it is like to face the dilemma of whether to eat or heat your home, go to a food-bank or a pay-day loan shark, go on a zero hours contract or lose your job.

The Chancellor wanted to put clear blue water between him and Labour today.  He showed that this government is not open to the suggestion that there is an alternative.  

Even his tax changes benefit higher earners more than those at the very bottom, because the low paid stand to lose through cuts to universal credit and/or council tax support.

And helping savers is all very well, if you have the money to save.  Sadly many public service workers are struggling to get by on the little they earn, let alone putting away for the future.  

I can’t imagine that many will be celebrating the opportunity of being able to save up to £15,000 a year in their new ISAs.

At one point Osborne sought to lighten the mood in the chamber by announcing the new £1 coin shaped like a threepenny bit.  Well I can think of a few million public service workers who wouldn’t mind the Chancellor putting some of them in their pockets, but they are not prepared to wait until 2018 and neither is this union.