How has the budget effected you?

You must be paid a Hell of a lot if putting your taxes up would have a significant effect on the national debt. ;-)

I thought you said solicitors were poorly paid.

:-) I wish!

But if taxes had been put up for me and all those on a similar level of earnings, it would.

Legal aid solicitors are, at least by professional standards. A significant proportion of them aren't higher rate taxpayers, and very few get close to the level of GPs. They are generally at the level of mid-ranking teachers or senior nurses.

But I am not in practice now.

I was told by Anglia water that they "expected" the water charge to rise by

That is perhaps to be expected since they have to pay huge sums to pump out the fens, and stop large parts of East Anglia falling into the sea (although the extent to which they do that seems to be fairly minimal), however, it would have been more honest to actually state it on the bill, rather than just trying to put up my charges by 50%. (When I phoned them, they readily agreed to put it down to a more realistic figure). Transparency, Huh!