Portrait of the Week – 19 March 2005

In a widely leaked tinkering Budget, Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, raised the threshold for stamp duty to be payable on houses from £60,000 to £120,000 and the threshold on inheritance tax from £260,000 to £275,000; slightly increased pensions; deferred petrol duty rises until September; increased excise on cigarettes by 7p a packet ‘for health reasons’; and announced plans for stem-cell experiments and a memorial to the Queen Mother in the Mall.