Anyone else seen the budget reports for UK today? Some good points in there but on the whole, nothing too surprising. A few things which grabbed my attention:

  • From next month until March 2010 motorists to get £2,000 discount on new cars if they trade in cars older than 10 years
This is already in-force in Germany, and has helped in the motor industry, and I guess Mr Darling wants to stimulate a declining UK motor industry. There are fears though that this will push up the cost of second hand cars.
  • All long-term unemployed under 25s to be offered job or training
An excellent move in my opinion. This country has too many free loaders who quite frankly are too lazy to get out there and support themselves and their families due to the level of income support this government pays. I've thought for a while we should put those in long term unemployment (without a valid reason) to community service, cleaning streets etc.

And the usual Cigarettes, alcohol and fuel:

  • Alcohol taxes to go up 2% from midnight - putting the price of the average pint up 1p
  • Tax on tobacco to go up by 2% from 6pm - equivalent to an extra 7p on a pack of 20 cigarettes
  • Fuel duty to rise by 2p per litre from September, then by 1p a litre above indexation each April for the next four years
Nothing to massivly effect me except the duty on fuel as I travel a lot for work (500 miles a week).