{"id":86918,"date":"2016-03-18T17:17:17","date_gmt":"2016-03-18T17:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=86918"},"modified":"2016-03-18T17:23:58","modified_gmt":"2016-03-18T17:23:58","slug":"burying-bad-news-under-a-ton-of-sugar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/burying-bad-news-under-a-ton-of-sugar\/","title":{"rendered":"Burying bad news under a ton of sugar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chancellor George Osbourne\u2019s March 2016 Budget speech delivered a bit of a mixed bag for the UK public when it was delivered on Wednesday. While attempting to steer clear of party politics (and that can be difficult), it\u2019s pretty much universally accepted that this year\u2019s budget delivered good news for small business owners and the middle classes\/high earners with generous tax cuts; and terrible news for people with disabilities with drastic cuts to personal independence payments (PIP).<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a> reported that upwards of 400,000 people face \u201cdevastating\u201d cuts from an enhanced payment of \u00a382 to the standard rate of \u00a355. Another 200,000 are expected to lose access to the payment altogether.\u00a0With 600,000+ vulnerable people hit hard in the pocket, you would think this would be big news across the mainstream media and social networks and we\u2019ve certainly seen some high profile influencers making noise about the issue on social media.<\/p>\n

\"robert<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Owen<\/a><\/p>\n

However, when compared to other news stories coming out of the budget, the PIP cuts barely scrapped a mention. Some might suggest that the chancellor buried this rather bleak news under a ton of sugar with widespread media coverage of the so-called \u201csugar tax\u201d (although Lifetime ISAs and the Tampon Tax also took a huge share of the social web\u2019s reaction to the budget \u2013see chart below).<\/p>\n

\"Social<\/a><\/p>\n

The sugar tax, campaigned for and popularised by TV chef Jamie Oliver, certainly sweetened the news coverage of the budget for Osbourne, detracting from the PIP cuts and making the biggest impact on the front pages of the UK press the following day with The Independent, The Times, The Financial Times, The Metro and The Sun all leading on the story.
\nBut how big a story is The Sugar Tax really when according to industry reports<\/a>, nearly half the population prefer diet or low sugar drinks (unaffected by the new taxes)? Then we have to ask ourselves, will a 6 to 8 pence price increase on a standard 330ml can of \u201cfull-fat\u201d cola really make such an impact on the lives of these who prefer a sugar hit?<\/p>\n

No sugar for Brexit<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"DailyStar\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The almost blanket coverage of the sugar tax perhaps demonstrates the political allegiance the majority of the press still have to The Conservatives. Although, much to David Cameron and George Osbourne\u2019s distaste, this support doesn\u2019t carry weight when it comes to issues like Brexit where the right-leaning media clearly has its own agenda.<\/p>\n

However, the sugar tax didn\u2019t win all of the headlines. The Express focused on the Chancellor using his Budget speech to “scare” voters about the prospect of Britain quitting the EU, The Guardian focused on a looming \u00a356bn “black hole” in the Government’s finances and The Daily Mirror quoted Jeremy Corbyn as saying the Budget was “built on failure” and slamming disability cuts.
\nThe New Day, Britain\u2019s newest newspaper lead, as it typically does, with a non-time sensitive feature.
\nMeanwhile, The Daily Star kept its gaze firmly in the gutter, ignoring both the sugar tax and PIP cuts and instead choosing to focus on Home Secretary (and the UK\u2019s most senior female politician) Theresa May\u2019s cleavage. Stay Classy Daily Star.<\/p>\n

The reason for this is probably due to Osbourne burying the issue under something more \u201cpopular\u201d \u2013 the sugar tax (which alongside the Tampon tax and Lifetime ISAs generated the most \u201cbuzz\u201d.<\/p>\n

To find out more about\u00a0the media and public reaction to budget read our media analysis and budget summary<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chancellor George Osbourne\u2019s March 2016 Budget speech delivered a bit of a mixed bag for the UK public when it was delivered on Wednesday. While attempting to steer clear of party politics (and that can be difficult), it\u2019s pretty much universally accepted that this year\u2019s budget delivered good news for small business owners and the middle classes\/high earners with generous tax cuts; and terrible news for people with disabilities with drastic cuts to personal independence payments (PIP).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":86927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[184,3729,3734],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86918"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}