Budget! Here's my two cents...

The 20% VAT rate is obviously going to get lots of coverage, and rightly so. Every media outlet is using the words 'regressive' and 'unfair' to describe it. It isn't fair because it does hit the poorest* disproportionately. People in the middle will lose out as well, missing out on benefits and also facing higher taxes.

But on the whole, I thought that the budget was pretty reasonable.

There were genuine attempts by the coalition to avoid putting all of the pain on those with the lowest incomes. Efforts to freeze public sector pay will only affect those earning higher salaries, those with wages that mean they will really struggle to pay all their bills and get enough food will have some protection. The raising of the allowance limit by £1000 as part of the drive to get it to £10,000 is very promising.

The call for government departments to cut their spending by 25% by the end of the parliament is surprisingly high. I suspect that there is a lot of waste in the public sector and that these cuts could be made. What worries me, and probably everyone else, is that useful and important things will be easy targets.

Harman's best line was that the Lib Dem's have sacrificed thousands of people's jobs in return for a few ministerial positions. Will read brilliantly in the Mirror. The rest of it was naturally - given that she didn't know exactly what was coming - vague and probably wouldn't have changed whatever Osbourne had said. Her cries that the cuts were ideologically driven were amusing, given how driven the Labour party is by its ideology. The Tories feel more comfortable with a smaller state, and they are looking to redefine the role of the state in our lives. They are right it is too large. They are right that the current benefits system is flawed, and they are right in trying to encourage private sector development. Labour are wrong to believe that simply creating government jobs in poorer areas solves the problem. Government is there to help people, not simply employ them all if they can't find jobs.


*It goes without saying that the convenient social definitions - the poor, the middle class, the rich - are useless. They are simple generalisations loaded with political implications. While there is just one budget, it will affect each individual in a different way. And the current media obsession with asking locals in Nottingham or Gateshead or wherever what they think of the budget and it's effects on them is irrelevant to everyone except themselves. Well, maybe that's a bit strong. But you get the point: the definitions are flawed.