Darling's phoney Budget doesn't change anything

Nimble

Dave hit the right tone talking about the real debt etc and comparing it with 1997. Nice and simple deficit means nothing to 99% of people. Pathetic "budget" and why if they're working so hard making the right decisions do they have time to be mucking about with belieze simply to attack Ashcroft can't he sue the Labour party for defamation of character or something ? This really is petty low politics

Richard

Time is running out for Oik and Dave they now have to come up with their plans. Holding back will make them look like they don't have any plans.
Will Dave and Oik reverse all the measures in the budget? if not why not and if only some which ones?
Announcements later today will force their hands even more......come on Davey boy wher's your response?

Chuck Unsworth

How much do these Labour cretins think they'll 'recover' from Belize, eh?

Ashcroft is, simply, a hell of a lot shrewder than Darling will ever be. If Darling thinks he'll get any significant revenues from this politicking he's even more deluded than he looks.

Does he seriously think that any such arrangement will do anything to fill the black hole?

Dungeekin

Captain Darling should be in the record books for that - the longest 'speech' ever given that said absolutely and precisely Nothing.

Nothing new, nothing radical, nothing that hadn't already been leaked and certainly nothing that will stop the impending fiscal meltdown.

Tragic spin-filled rubbish, from a tragic, spin-filled Government.

dungeekin.blogspot.com/2010/03/budget-2010-in-song.html

D

Jez

no offence to anyone but;

A Crap response to a earth-shuddering realisation (for anyone with a brain-cell.... maybe) that the Tories are seriously on the back-foot now.

Nulab (how?- i cannot even begin to contemplate) are coming out with guns blazing..... and with the un-informed masses; 'it's better the devil you know..'

This is very clever from these left wing twerps.....

If this keeps on track, Cameron (and his PR teams) will be looking for new job in a few months.

Absolute f***** debacle, Tories.

Sort it out- QUICK!

Harry Johnston

On the live blog you said:

1250, PH: A double-whammy of copied Tory ideas. Darling says that the government will start reconsidering retirement ages. And Darling says that he will double the stamp duty holiday to £250,000.

In his 2003 conference speech Brown said:

"And what our economic policy is proving is that you do not defeat the Tories by imitation or just by better presentation but by Labour policies and Labour reforms grounded in Labour values."

Oh....

Stevie

Darlings pathetic, schoolboy politics speech was an insult to the nation. He is a bitter, pathetic little man, doomed to being usurped by Osborne or Balls. A failed budget from a failed government.

Richard

As every week goes by the tories are backed further into a corner. It is clear that the labour tactic is to force the tories to try and slay the demon that they are for the few and not the many. But like a rope that gets tighter everyday bit by bit Labour add something that if they (the tories) denounce makes them look more like a mouth piece for vested interests like Ashcroft.
The tories now have a mountain to climb if they are to unwind all the bindings Labour have put on them.
The tories are losing the economic argument and now they are on the rack. Take any one of the proposals announced by Labour that they would reverse and you will see Labour's smiles get wider.
Time is running out for the tories to get out from the grip of the labour python.

GDT

a quote from the BBC.
"He said that the debt would continue to fall faster than previously forecast - dropping to £74bn in 2014-15, down £8bn on his earlier prediction. "
This isn't debt it is deficit. My god I depair at the lack of understanding on this topic. In 4 years time he will still be running the nations debt even higher!!!!!

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Tragic that against a typical NuLabour Coward's Budget Caring Dave remains impotent. Endlessly braying in the House, with Teresa May acting as a counterpoint to Brown's Straw, nodding like a deranged rocking horse at each nonsensical statement. Brown will probably be back to torment us after the Election, as the Budget has been tailored for cowards dependent on benefits, government control and without their own backbones or even a glimmer of self-reliance.

Richard

@Jez
At last a tory that hasn't got his head up is own fundament.
The clock is ticking and so far Dave and Oik are not even on the starting block....

Tankus

Lord Ashcroft of the Caymans soon ...methinks !

Do you think that Brown babbles AShcroft Ashcroft Ashcroft in his sleep ...?

A political budget that failed the country.

Tiberius

I should think, Tankus, that Sarah thinks Ashcroft is her husband's mistress.

davidke

Yes it was very smart budget. Nothing for the Tories here. Cameron couldn't do much with it. A very relaxed performance by Brown and Darling. Their strategy is paying off although I still expect Tories to win. Tories have to look like a Government in waiting now, and start releasing each day the hard, thoughtful bits of policy that I hope to God they have got ! Cut out the mock anger and sniping at Brown and get positive, and give hope to the people, not just gloom and fear. Otherwise Brown is going to steal it. Now or never. Cameron was also relaxed, which was so correct today. Enjoying fatherhood, a good image to project, but now we need some vision of happier, more sensible times ahead

JONNY

You're getting over-excited Richard
Time for afternoon beddybyes.

Simon The Bluesman

This is my final post. Richard, regarding “Davey boy wher's your response?” Did you not listen to Cameron’s budget response? Keep posting your comments because you do make me laugh.

The Bellman

Tthe most significant part of the budget 'debate' was the way the Labour front bench huddled over their Blackberries as soon as Cameron stood up. The sheer arrogance and contempt for democracy displayed by that lack of courtesy speaks volumes about this tribe of self-serving third-raters. (For Bruin, this is standard behaviour, of course - although he had a face like a hatful of slapped arses for most of the day.) The Tory front bench at least had the decency to pretend to be interested in Darling's miserable string of warmed-over 'will this do?' hashes.

@Richard: If the tactical genius that you claim to detect in Labour's last-ditch land-grab of Tory territory were true, it would scarcely be something to be proud of, especialy given the damage they have inflicted in order to achieve it. And I would crow more quietly if I were you. If - Heaven stops its nose at thought - Labour do bribe, cajole and ballot-stuff their way to some kind of parity, the stupid bastards will be forced to actual govern in the national interest.

New Labour - a tactic in search of a strategy.

Jez

Hi Richard,

I aren't a tory.... i aren't anything.

But i will vote for someone who i think is not going to sell my family down the river....

I find the evermore abundant fact that Nulab are probably going to get back in, a complete disgrace.

And this disgust is directed toward a political team that is flailing about, spazmoed next to an opponent that has catastrophically failed on every level of governance- both Domestic and International;

aka The Tories Vs NuLab.

Absolutely scandalous.

M. Rowley

I'm afraid this Budget only goes to show that buying votes with other people's money remains central to Labour thinking. Worryingly and sadly, they may yet be proved right.

paulg

I can see the labour trolls have been taking their happy pills, because david Cameron won this hands down.

Mr Browns only strategy to getting us out of this mess is to copy the tories fiscal policies.

Labour looked like what they are rank amateurs.

Labour have taken us into the long recession their policies of keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best, have kept us in it longer than anyone else.

The only ideas that they can come up with are conservative party policy.

Why would anyone vote for an ersatz treasury team, when sitting ready to take over are the people who are coming up with the solutions, guided by men who guided us through and out of the last recession.

Simon Stephenson

"we're meant to be all excited that borrowing is £11bn lower this year than previously forecast – at £167bn."

I shouldn't get too excited by this if I were you. Considering the overall situation that we are in, there's just too much "good" news being drip-fed to the general public from government-controlled sources, and it doesn't ring true.

As far as the PBR is concerned, look out for a post-election upward correction of February and/or March, and also for higher-than-expected borrowing figures in the early months of the new financial year, as essential spending deferred from this year flows through.

If there's one thing that's certain in this world, apart from death, it is that this government is fudging and manipulating arrangements so as to make the next few weeks' public announcements as favourable to it as they can possibly be made to look. There'll be more window-dressing than in the whole of Oxford Street in the run-up to Christmas.

Richard

@Jez
Sorry to have called you a troy I know it must have hurt.
You seem a fair minded person so I wish you well and take care of that family they will need you if the tories get in.

Greenslime

Maybe I'm stupid. Maybe I'm missing something. I thought Cameron rather comprehensively trashed the budget, and Labour's record of the last 13 years during his response speech.

Now, Labour has laid its final cards on the table. The Tories can now start announcing policies with the sure knowledge that they won't be stolen or fiscally sabotaged. I suspect will shall now see an uptick in their activity.

Balls and Cable cuddling each other for John Sopel later was interesting too - Balls repeating the 'Tories will cut schools, hospitals, nurses, policemen, etc.,' speech and Cable looking very sheepish with all the love coming from Cahonas - which led Sopel to opine that they were obviously very close to announcing a pact - imagine that, they will all wear sandals and swear they are wearing shoes despite the visible evidence. Balls sliming up to you and continually patting you on the back and complimenting you on your views - it'd make me vomit. I think Vince nearly did - but then Labour need all the friends they can get right now.

Simon Stephenson

Tankus 3.18pm and Tiberius 3.22pm

The reason that Labour keep bringing up Ashcroft is because he's a vote-winner for them at the Conservatives' expense. Despite there being a contingent of the Conservative Party which is fairly relaxed about the way he organises his financial affairs, the fact remains that the vast majority of the people of this country don't have the option of choosing to take their income in whichever country offers the most attractive tax structure. And I'd hazard a guess that they don't really go a bundle on granting authority to someone who chooses to pay his tax somewhere other than this country.

So if the Conservatives insist on keeping Ashcroft in a position of power within the Party then I'm afraid they will not be Top of the Pops. And if they fail to see this, they really don't have the qualities necessary to govern the country.

Jez

Ha Ha!

Will do Richard.

All the best.

Paddy

Ashcroft for PM.

TrevorsDen

What a dope you are 'Richard' - do you really take us to be so thick?

Labour have published no plans. There is no plan to reduce the debt. Just wishful thinking.

2trueblue

What was there of substance in the budget?
Gosh so we borrowed less last month and that means we continue spending like crazy. Sounds like a teenagers answer to economics.

Major Plonquer

I agree 100% with Richard and I thank him for making Labour's policy perfectly clear.

ALL Labour policies - and this budget in particular - have nothing to do with running the country or even attempting to dig us out of the monumental fiscal hole Gordon Brown has dug for us. No.

All their policies are about heaping more and more taxes on us, the people of Britain, and daring David Cameron to reverse them.

Richard has convinced me. We need to vote Tory in spades so we can put Cameron on the spot. Vote Tory. Let's make these b*stards squirm.