The real Budget story unravels

It takes a few days for the 'analysts' to work it out, but it's clear now that Gordon Brown tried to pull a fast one on Wednesday. Here's some of the facts that are starting to emerge:

Gordon Brown claimed that 4 out of 5 households would be better off because of his budget, yet leading accountants say this is impossible to prove because of missing information which includes:

• The level of income at which basic-rate tax will become payable from 2008-2010
• The level of salary above which National Insurance is payable for that time
  
• Increases in personal allowances for people under the age of 65 from 2008-2010
• When higher-rate tax becomes payable in 2008-2009
• Details on who is able to claim working tax credits or child tax credits and how much
• Levels of inflation the Treasury has assumed for its figures
• No commitment to provide this information in next week's Finance Bill, which will only cover tax changes in 2008-2008

It's clear that the people who lose out most from this budget is single people with no kids on less than 18k, which, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, equates to 2 million people. The loss is due to the abolition of the 10p starting tax rate, and the fact that they can't claim child tax credit to claw back the difference.

The other losers in the budget is people like myself - small business owners, because the Corporation Tax rate is rising from 20 to 22p for small companies, yet coming down for large companies.

All in all it's a very strange Budget for a Labour government. So much for looking after the poorest in society and encouraging entrepreneurship.

And so much for the green measures - is £400 road tax really going to deter those who can afford a £50k Range Rover?

The Sun made itself look stupid, while other papers were taking a cautious reaction to the Budget, the Sun rejoiced with this headline:

Surely, The Sun's core readership must be those low earners who will actually be worse off?

Touch wood, none of this will affect me, as we'll be long gone by the time the changes start next April. The state of politics in this country is one of many reasons why we're fleeing down under.

Is this the most boring task ever?

All in all, the project I'm working on at the moment is quite interesting. However, the task I've been working on for the last couple of days nearly made me lose the will to live.

I'm providing IT security consultancy for a project that's rolling out over 6000 new PC's across the company, with an upgraded operating system and standardised build comprising approved operating system settings and 'rationalised' applications. One part of the project is to implement a standard 'Group Policy' structure which completely locks down each PC to reduce risk.

The task I somehow ended up with this week was, as part of the comms plan, to give a detailed explanation of every group policy setting and the rationale behind why we're implementing it. The problem is, there's hundreds of them!

Of course, the answer to the blog post title is no, it's not the most boring task in the world. I appreciate some people have much more boring jobs, and don't get the remuneration for it like I do. Even so, it does make me wonder about my career choice!

UK sailors captured at Gunpoint

I can't believe that Iranian forces have captured Royal Navy sailors again.

I sailed through Iranian waters a few times myself during my years as a matelot, and tension always rose because of the number of Iranian FPB's (Fast Patrol Boats) that came close to us. We always had to close to a high state of readiness whenever we went through the Straits of Hormuz on our way round to the Arabian Gulf.

This time it sounds even worse because if the reports are correct, the boarding team were in Iraqi territorial waters at the time, not Iranian. I can't believe we let them get away with it. I know it may be out of proportion to potentially start a major international incident that could lead to war on the back of this, but what is the 4.5 inch gun on HMS Cornwall for!

I papped myself!

I'm sitting here at the train station waiting for my 17:18 (of course I missed the 16:18 again), with the adreneline still pumping slightly from the scare I had about an hour ago.

I was sitting at my desk (on the ground floor of a very tall building) when suddenly there was a really loud explosion which shook the windows. A few yelps when out from people around me and everyone jumped up, like me, fearing the worst. Turned out it was a tyre exploding on a Lorry outside.

Tiger Tiger

Had an interesting afternoon today. We had a 'Launch Event' for the main project I'm working on. The project team had booked out a room at Tiger Tiger with food laid on and a free bar! I love those words - FREE BAR! It wasn't all play though. We had to do some 'activities' before we could get stuck into the bar. You know, the usual stuff: forming circles so you get to meet everyone else who is working on the project; brainstorming inputs into the processes; identifying disconnects. Actually it was quite a laugh and it turned out to be useful. We managed to identify and sort out some fundamental bottlenecks in the project using those 'activities', which otherwise might have taken 10 meetings to sort out.

A few years ago I would have been like a bull to a red flag with the free bar, but I'm much more sensible these days. Just the 4 bottles of Becks and then I slipped out quietly before I got too much of a taste for it and then wanted to stay all night.

My head is hurting now though. I've never been very good at drinking during the day and then stopping. I need to carry on drinking through to bedtime otherwise I feel like shit.

I liked the fact that the party was held during work time though, that would never have happened at the last place I worked.

Madness!

I was walking through the Arndale Shopping Centre at about 5:30pm today and noticed a large line of people queueing to get into Virgin Megastores. Turns out they were waiting for the release of the Playstation 3 at midnight tonight:


I don't know how long the people at the beginning of the queue had been there but even so, from the time I took this picture they had another 6 and a half hours to wait.

I went in and had a look at a demo of the PS3 and fair enough, it does look good. But is it really worth standing in line for hours on end just so you can be one of the first to get your hands on it? It's not as if they're going to be in shortly supply - Sony aren't predicting any shortages.

In fact, it's the Nintendo Wii that's in short supply apparently. I bought Rach a Wii for xmas. I was really lucky, I just walked into a Game shop and managed to pick up one of the last ones in stock. She loves it, she's addicted to playing Wii Smooth Moves at the moment. Personally I love Wii Sports - it makes me feel like I'm playing competitive sports even though I'm not leaving the living room. At least the Wii gets you up of your arse and actually involves moving body parts other than your thumbs! I get a sweat on getting beat up playing boxing with my 5 year old daughter - she is rather good, and I hate losing! I know I should let her win, but it's not in me. That's what makes it even worse when she beats me. How embarrassing getting beat by a 5 year old girl!

I wouldn't buy a PS3 on principle. £425 - that's taking the piss. Why do we always get ripped off? It's much cheaper in America and Japan. Not only that, the European version for some reason is not fully backwards compatible. Sony say they cannot be certain that all the old games will play on the new platform. Note this is only a problem with the European version. Why do consumers put up with it? Oh and of course the PS3 has been available in the rest of the world for months now.

I'm not fond of Sony because of this and other reasons. I don't like the way they make everything proprietary so you have to stick to their standards and products. Like you have to use a Sony memory card - you can't use a SD card.

Saying that, I wish I was more principled. I've got a Sony Ericsson phone and a Sony PSP. I feel dirty!

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