Well the budget was just about as exciting as I expected. There was the usual element of giving with one hand and the taking with another. I imagine a lot of people will be checking their last council tax bill in order to see what council tax band they fall into and whether they qualify for the £100 payment towards heating bills.

It’s a clever trick that all Government’s use, giving a hand out for a specified amount…. “yippee… £100” but at the same time increasing tax (this time on savings), which might well be a much larger amount but unspecified because it depends on how much you have tucked away for that rainy day.

Of course the other significant factor is what does not get mentioned at all…. the failure to raise tax free personal allowances once again which has the benefit of raising more money in the stealthiest way possible.

All budgets have to adopt a risk based approach. It is probably an endorsement when the most notable criticism from the opposition is that you haven’t been bold enough. Certainly, that’s a lot less stinging than “you have adopted too much risk”.

I think the overall picture is that the economy is in such a poor state that the amount of choice government has is extremely limited. This mirrors what has been going n in local government.

The best way of changing things for the better is securing some agreements with the EU that improve our trading situation, including freedom of movement within the EU. We don’t need to worry about the Polish or Romanians coming here, stealing our jobs. The economies there are doing well. Freedom of movement means that people can decide to move where the jobs exist and surely everybody benefits from that ?