Darling’s budget was bad. Osborne’s complicity was worse

There was much that was absurd about Wednesday’s pre-Budget Report, from Alistair Darling’s failure to outline a realistic plan to prevent Britain’s national debt from exploding, to his risibly over-optimistic long-term growth forecasts. Public spending will jump again next year, we’re told. Schools, hospitals and police will be protected from cuts if Labour wins the election — which, plainly, it has not the slightest expectation of doing. This was about political positioning, banker-bashing, with a new bonus tax, and pretending to the electorate that a few efficiency savings and National Insurance tweaks will be enough to rescue Britain. The intention was to deceive voters, with the pain only kicking in after the election.

It is ironic to hear the Chancellor telling the City to ‘start living in the real world’, for his Budget (it tinkered too much to justify being called a ‘Pre-Budget Report’) was a work of pure delusion. The ‘efficiency savings’ he mentioned are, of course, largely imaginary. Then let us take Mr Darling’s forecast that the economy will break into a sprint, with growth of 3.25 per cent for four consecutive years starting the April after next. Not a single independent economist shares this view. He imagines the 50p tax will raise revenue: it is very unlikely to do so, despite the crackdown on allowances — thereby increasing the burden on the poor.

But what was most extraordinary about the Budget was that it confirmed that the Conservatives have largely signed up to this new anti-City, soak-the-rich agenda. David Cameron is right that a sensible centre-right party should be calling for a reformed, more prudent City. But Tories have instead decided to join Labour’s revenue and prosperity-destroying hunt for those on large incomes. George Osborne did not raise a squeak of objection to any of the banker taxes. The Tories have yet again been duped into accepting Labour’s destructive consensus.