The Budget 2009

[Perdita]

Chancellor Alistair Darling's Budget 2009 is due on April 22, what are your thoughts on what will/might be announced? I expect that most incentives will be given to stimulate the economy.

[Siobhan]

Well if the irish budget last week is anything to go buy, working mothers, who smoke and drive diesel cars were the worst affected in the budget....

[Chloe O'brien]

I don't think there will be anyone better off with this years budget. Booze, fags and petrol will be going up but there is unlikely to be any major increase to peoples income or Working tax credit. So I doubt it will make a huge difference to my purse.

[Trinity]

We have a minimum wage - so how about a maximum one?

Set it as a multiple of say 10 or 15 times the minimum wage.


It is truly obscene that some CEOs earn hundreds of times the average salary in their organisation.

Case in point - fat cat banker, £4.5 M in pay and bonus last year. Average bank worker salary £21K = multiple of 214. What is that as a multiple of the minimum wage???

I think that 15 times the minimum wage should give people enough to live rather well on - but I can hear them squealing now -all our best brains (and footballers, lol) will leave the country and go to America.

I don't think that America can afford them now either.

[Abigail]

I agree with that Trinity. There should be a cap on how much bankers and other public sector workers should earn. However, private companies that don't don't provide public services should be free to set their own salaries. It's their profits they're wasting on absurd wages.

There should be a law against footballers earning millions of pounds for doing next to nothing. Rugby players get paid twice the average wage (depending on experience, talent etc) and they don't get into fights or arrested for sex crimes.