Hi ,

Happy Halloween and Happy Diwali! Over and over in our Budget analysis, we found ourselves writing the same thing: it's good that they tried, but experts agree this just isn't enough. Every Budget is a choice whether to engage with the reality of the crises we’re in or to stick within what our political system considers reasonable and, within that frame, we welcome the progress it does make on investing in our future. But when faced with the reality of the UK's crises, the Budget failed to meet the challenges.

The big headline changes in this Budget were around the fiscal rules that govern investment, raising taxes, and increasing spending on some public services, particularly for the NHS and schools. Although welcome, in both cases, the amounts announced are less than experts believe is necessary to make a real difference. For other public services, the funding increases are even less than needed.

How much of a difference will this Budget make to inequality? Distributional analysis indicates this Budget will redistribute some wealth from the richest to the rest of us, as long as public services really do improve (which is not a certainty) and as long as the employer tax changes aren't passed on to workers. The Budget recommitted to taxing non-doms and private school VAT, two manifesto pledges that had come into question after furious lobbying, and raised £2.5bn from capital gains tax and £2bn from inheritance tax, two things that will overwhelmingly affect the richest.

Here, though, they fumbled the bag: the capital gains tax increase was much less than expected or needed, leaving over £10bn on the table, and no other measures to tax the rich were attempted. When Tax Justice UK believe £60bn can be raised by taxing the rich, choosing to go ahead with £4.3bn of welfare cuts for people with disabilities and chronic illnesses feels indefensible.

How would you describe the UK's inequality crisis? You said:

• "Very difficult to solve. As with eating an elephant, one bite at a time."
  
  
• "[The poll question] is a false distinction. I'm against the principle too. The principle and the effect are inseparable.

  What frustrates me is there is very little public discourse about the distribution of power. Issues are always expressed in terms that obscure the fact that power inequality is at the root of everything wrong in our society."
  
  

• "Probably as serious as the climate crisis - and I believe that applies globally as well as nationally."
  
  

• "Them and us. There's a huge perceived gap between people who feel empowered in their everyday lives and those who feel powerless jetsam.

  Whether the gap is actual, ie as huge in concrete terms is almost irrelevant. Those who have sufficient knowledge and confidence to find their way round the formal administration of local and national governance are at a significant advantage."
  
  

• "At its worst in my lifetime, that is since at least the mid 1950s."