George Osborne’s balance in his first budget had to be to stimulate wealth creation while cutting state spending, but the new coalition chancellor has delayed the expenditure cuts while taxing business as much as it gains.
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Alistair Darling must have been tempted to present a budget so full of promises it set an impossible trap for an incoming Conservative government. In fact the chancellor has promised so much Labour is in danger of winning the general election and being caught in its own trap.
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This will be the year of two UK budgets – and the year of none. The chancellor’s pre-election budget will avoid tough action for fear of losing votes and the post-election budget will avoid it because the manifestos shied away from tough threats.
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Everyone agrees the government must return a sick economy to health. The disagreement is how quickly to do it. Too much medicine could kill the patient; too little allows the disease to fester.
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Alistair Darling should be wary about announcing new tax holidays in April’s budget, but he should not make the mistake of canceling the current ones because they are not working. And he should not make the mistake of extending them.
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Bad news comes late, early news is good. We should be worried therefore that there is talk of delaying the UK Budget until April.
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Eager retailers would have introduced the Vat cut immediately – not complained about having only a week to work out how to do it. Don’t they know a sales aid when they see one?
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If there is any doubt about the size of the financial problem, look at the scale of the solution. Britain is undergoing its most radical economic change since the second world war.
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