The Budget will be on 24 March

TomTom

Well having cut VAT on petrol a special levy was brought in to recoup the loss. VAT back at 17.5% with the levy still in place, plus another rise in duty on 1 April. So maybe he won't add to petrol costs in the budget, simply wait for the Emergency Budget in June

The Bellman

He's put on weight. Let us all hope that this represents the fattening before the kill.

Not literally, of course.

And he's wearing a red-ish tie in contrast to the dark blues of late. I think this tells us a lot about the self-perceived advantage of the McSnotty-Blinky 'axis of incontinence' over the Mandelson-Darling 'axis of (relative) reason'.

denis cooper

I think you'll find that the Queen will dissolve Parliament, not Brown.

RKing

Brown gives another "Chilcott" speech!!

Stevie

Browns speech was yet another fantasy, chock full of lies. The mans neck must be pure brass.

strapworld

wouldn't it be wonderful if parliament could be dissolved, then we could pour the whole stinking lot of them down the toilet pan, Mind you it would probably need four or five flushes!

Carroll Barry-Walsh

The Budget is not a budget merely part of Labour's electioneering; it's a misuse of Parliamentary time. Brown might as well call the election now and get on with it. The Tories should already be campaigning now as if the election had been called but are being feeble, frankly.

stephen

Brown on a roll! Sadly he speaks well on the Economy much better than Dave and his Boy George. I despair of the Tories and the Cameroons Mail yesterday says poor Ken Clarke feels excluded by Dave and the lads led by Boy George and Hilton and the big beasts are not getting involved. Laughable how can the Tories screw up some much?

Ludwig von Crises

'Protecting the recovery'? 'Detecting the recovery' would be a start.

Richard

He subtlely turned the economic argument in its head now the challenge is for those in the Tory party to come up with the answers.
Skillfully done with the precision of a surgeon.
Perhaps it went over most of your heads but be sure Georgie boy will be sweating now.
6th of May...just enough time for the Tories to squeeze in a few more wobbles.
bring on the blind tory nutters now to drive home the final nails in the coffin.

Paul Williams

Brown could dissolve Parliament on 6 April,

That would mean an election on 29th April. For a 6th May Parliament has to be dissolved on 12th April. You can't have more than the allotted 17 days.

Brown could 'announce' the election on 6th, allowing time for wash-up and then dissolve Parliament on 12th.

Will Stanton

I question your assumption that a slip back into recession, and a sickly ecomony generally, are bad for Brown. If the econmy looks precarious then many people are likely to play it safe and stick with what they know (Brown); whereas if the economy is seen to be properly recovering that gives people the confidence to vote for a new team.

Bocephus

It has to be remembered if Brown were to hoodwink the British public and pull off a miraculous election win Darling will definitely not be the Chancellor after the election, it will almost certainly be Balls. It doesn't even bare thinking about the havoc those two would cause.

It is almost unbelievable that Labour have lost virtually no votes since 2005 despite all the lies, thuggery and complete failure of their economic policy. Staggering.

Jonny Jimmy

So we know the date of the budget
How will the British public judge it?
Cuts or investment?
A tax reassessment?
Who cares, we know they'll just fudge it...

Chris, Birmingham

May I suggest that the spectator comes up with a sort of live fisk for the budget and election campaign. You may not be that enamoured with Cameron but at least he tends to tell the truth (for all the talk of slick salesman it is Brown who would still insist that no-one lost out on 10p tax amendment).

If the crowd can point out the lies and sleight of hand for an immediate fact check then politicians can use this to blow labour out of the water.

You could prefix reports by

Incorrect fact - when a politician lies (or quango or union stooges) then it can be pointed
Misrepresentation of opposition - when as Brown is want to do, he comes up with a totally random figure and states it is opposition policy, and x number of nurses would lose their jobs it can be checked.
Hidden problem - a headline tax cut which the treasury describes as fiscally neutral must mean that someone else is paying.

No-one with any sense would think that Labour are not underhand enough to lie about who will benefit - their comms teams will be issuing things to lazy journalists to point out winners and losers which will probably not be checked - those of us who think this is wrong should be prepared to check.

idonotbelieveit

I predict a modest rise in the growth figures in April, followed by a downward revision soon after the election

Ken

Surely its the Chancellor's job to announce the Budget.

More BrownBalls control-freakery?

AuldCurmudgeon

Vote Alistair, get Balls.

Sally Chatterjee

Brown announced savings to the public sector wage bill today... only they were already mentioned in the Pre-Budget Report last autumn (page 112 apparently) and any "savings" claimed have already been thrown into the budget, they are not extra. So no more effort on the deficit at all.

Brown was just reheating old news. It'll be interesting to see if the media picks up on this.

Ludwig von Crises

@Richard: "With the precision of a surgeon..."

You might ponder the distinction between 'precision' and 'accuracy'. (Your mum downstairs might have a dictionary you can borrow.)

A surgeon who had removed the wrong lung and left his wrist-watch inside the cavity could have done so with great precision. He then could dose the patient with so much anaesthetic that he was temporarily and thankfully oblivious of the implications of his inattentiveness. In fact it is possibe that the stupefied patient would actually be grateful for the apparent success of the operation.

Until the point at which the chloral wore off, covers were drawn back, the x-rays examined.

Brown is the surgeon. Mandelson and the media are the anaesthetists - forced by the gravity of the situation to act more like heroin dealers. The markets are the x-ray dept. Darling is the hospital's hapless PR flak-catcher.

Alas there is no BUPA facility in sight. The IMF might be the hospice, I suppose.

And oh for the card of a good malpractice lawyer...

wrinkled weasel

Pete, you and all the other meeja peeps have jumped on the bandwagon of May 6th, linking this date to the budget. What is your evidence for this? You are actually wrong. Don't any of you follow the form book? Brown is a serial bottler. He is indecisive. He makes the Prince of Denmark look like Hamlet the Decisive.

Brown will wriggle and squirm and plot and plan until he is forced from Number Ten by the Parliament Act. He has also declared his intention to stay on in the event of a defeat for Labour. Does that not tell you anything?

General Zod

The last date for a general election is 3 June. Parliament's term ends at midnight two months from today on 10 May. Will he bottle and wait for the last moment? Will he hope for some crumbs of hope from the local elections on 6 May or fear a drubbing that will make things even worse on 3 June?

Who knows? I suspect Brown doesn't.