Much sniggering among political journalists after the Prime Minister's spokesman was asked how much input the Prime Minister has had in Alistair Darling's Budget.

(I'm still tittering at the Mac cartoon in the Daily Mail which shows Darling bringing the tea into the PM's study as he scribbles away and then turns to the Chancellor and says: "Don't be so impatient, Alistair. You'll get to read it on Wednesday.")

Anyway, the PM's spokesman told us: "The Prime Minister has been consulted, as you would expect, no more or no less - I would have thought - than any other Government announcement of this significance."

Really? He added that when Gordon Brown was Chancellor, he used to consult Tony Blair about the Budget.

"That's not what Derek Scott says!" quipped one wag present. (Derek Scott was formerly Blair's economic adviser in 10 Downing Street.)

"Derek Scott's is not the most definitive or authoritative account," came the withering riposte.

Darling's task, as he unveils his first Budget, is to try and prove that he's his own man. A tough task, given everything we know about Gordon Brown the control freak.

He also has to try to repair Labour's battered reputation with business, badly damaged by the Chancellor in his Pre-Budget Report with his corporation tax and non-doms changes.

He has to establish some green credentials, while persuading a sceptical public that raising taxes on gas-guzzling cars, for example, is not just an excuse to hammer the middle classes with new stealth taxes.

But if you fancy Budget trivia, how about this? Ladbrokes are offering 5/6 on a speech of under 55 minutes and 6/1 for the shortest Budget speech ever. The current record is 45 minutes.

You can get 6/4 on the Chancellor wearing a blue tie, 3/1 on a red tie, 8/1 on purple (which seems like a good bet to me) and 6/4 on "economic stability" being his first phrase or slogan.

No odds offered by Ladbrokes on the PM's input, I'm afraid. But I just recall what Margaret Thatcher always used to say: "Never forget who is the First Lord of the Treasury."

Quite so.

Comments

[John, Northumberland 12 Mar 2008 17:05:30]

Hi Philip

Sorry if I sound like the prophet of doom but I think that the damage done by this Government must not be underestimated.

Inflation has been low courtesy of the Chindia effect. Interest rates low as a result. This led to house price boom. But this never hit the inflation figures because Brown took it out.

So it escalated in the debt fuelled consumer boom. And this gave us the last two Labour Governments. (The first one kept with Ken Clarke's spending targets).

As a result of this reckless incompetence, this has been the biggest ever boom. The crash will have severe consequences - I'm talking Depression.

Just be careful with big long term investments as the consequences of the last few years are played out in the wider economy.

regards

John

[Philip, Bristol 12 Mar 2008 15:51:48]

John

Anyone who bought property even at top wack just before the last crash....would still have multiplied their cash four to five times by now.

In some parts of the country you can make that ten times.

My Buy to Let is a profitable hobby which will eventually provide me with an excellent pension which I will need because of Bottler ruining my real one.

[John, Northumberland 12 Mar 2008 12:08:57]

Philip, Bristol

"Money for Nothing and your chicks for free?"

Be careful! You suggest "buy when the market's down and wait for it to rise while someone rents it from me and pays the mortgage".

The market has never been so high and has a long way to fall.

And what happens if over the course of the mortgage (25 years plus?), you are unable to rent your property out for a significant period? Your risk-free asset becomes a liability. And a very illiquid liability at that.

Your brilliant property development/market timing plan may well end in tears...

Just ask Mr Adam Applegarth, former Chief Exec at Northern Rock!

[Mentor - Northumberland 12 Mar 2008 11:12:05]

Philip - Bristol:

God does indeed love a trier, or as NuLabour would say Allah loves a trier!

[James, London 12 Mar 2008 11:04:49]

"the Prime Minister's spokesman was asked how much input the Prime Minister has had in Alistair Darling's Budget."

Is this evidence of a tame Lobby? Surely the question should have been, "how much input has Alistair Darling had in the Prime Minister's Budget?"

[Philip, Bristol 12 Mar 2008 10:45:49]

JD. You have to be joking. Now is the time to buy. I am getting great bargains thanks very much.

Houses are long term John...buy when the market's down and wait for it to rise while someone rents it from me and pays the mortgage.

Don't you just luvvvv capitalism...lol

[John Delaney 12 Mar 2008 10:35:21]

It does not matter one joult what he says today because on one side you will have lab voters agreeing with him on the other the tories crying foul and the Libs not having a clue either way or they may walk out or absatin.

[John Delaney 12 Mar 2008 10:27:20]

Oh phillip you are a little bitter the buy to let market gone upside down for you who's fault is that.

[Mentor - Northumberland 12 Mar 2008 10:20:30]

CA:

One minute your condemn those who suggest the Budget Darling is to announce is not his, then you say it is done by Civil Servants and was planned 3 years ago!

The NuLabour Planet is a very peculiar strange place, where is it?

FYI.
Nothing built on debt can be deemed successful on any planet.

[John, Northumberland 12 Mar 2008 10:01:09]

Mentor

I agree that this Government have bankrupted the country. And that today we will get another shed load of 'green' and other stealth taxes to pay for their reckless incompetence.

But Margaret Thatcher to sort it out? She did control the Unions, introduce flexible labour laws, reduce the number of public sector workers and keep EU regulation at bay.

However, her severe economic policies (remember no lame ducks?) put our traditional manufacturers (ie value producers)to the sword.
She was the first UK PM to have Trade deficits. And we now consider this as the norm. Big mistake.

She was the architect of the "Service Economy". Where we divert investment and resource from value producers to high return/low value investments (retail parks, coffee shops, property etc).

ALL Governments post '79 have been Thatcherite (okay Blair/Brown added heavy regulation & even heavier public spending). But we're living in a fools paradise.

The impact of North Sea Oil, the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of China & India have masked the long term damage that has been done to our economy.

And I believe that the waterfall is just coming into view now. Margaret may have thrown some of the garbage out of the canoe, which meant we travelled more quickly for a while. Shame she and those who followed her had also thrown out the paddle!

[Philip, Bristol 12 Mar 2008 09:52:58]

I believe the poll saying Bottler is returning to his previous Greatness (hmmpphh).

I congratulate all the NuLab bloggers on how right they were and how wrong I was. To make sure that Bott..I mean the Great Gordon is kept in power he should take advantage of this great upsurge in his popularity to call a May election and then we can enjoy another 10 years of hel..whoops...I mean happiness under the NuLab yoke.

I know that all NuLab bloggers on here are now convinced victory will be His and I am sure that they will wish to support me in this!

Well! It's worth a try. Ain't it...:)

[Philip, Bristol 12 Mar 2008 09:44:36]

Darling his own man...of course he is.

And the price will go up on a gottle of geer.

[neither/niether 12 Mar 2008 09:42:35]

He can "tinker" tailor, all he wants and proberbly will, to hide all the bad news. He has a good mentor for doing that. What I will be most interested in, is the bones of the budget .. The spending, and borrowing forcasts, and what adjustments from last years forcasts, he has to make. Browns been bragging and bullsh..... for years on his handling of the economy. Today we will see the begining of his BAD HANDLING of the economy. Debt he has got this country into will become more transparant. Forgetting party politics, if he was a director and responsible for the financial position, of a limited co. he would be charged with running a company, knowing it was insolvent. Of course that cannot happen, but he can be charged with the same crime by voting him out, at the next general election. He will blame USA. prime mortgages and anything else he can, but the truth is he has spent year after year what he never truly had to spend. Billions put into public services much of what has been badly spent. Where did the mony come from? BORROWING. I rember seeing a drama/documentry, where Prescott and mr spin Cambell was discusing who should lead N/LAB It was decided that Blair would be more of a vote catcher than Brown. One thing that really stood out was them saying, "we can be in power for the next 10 years" How right they were, how? by lying about the economy!! Yes there has been growth ( no thanks to them )there would have been growth anyway, as already said, money put into public services, but this is money he didn't have to spend, even with all the extra taxes gradualy slipped in for us to pay. He has borrowed and borrowed not caring about the pay back as long as it kept them in power for 10 years!! Borrowing for the right reasons and knowing you will be abla to pay it back, is often a sound decision, but to borrow knowing you can only pay the money back by GAMBLING is incompident! not prudent! and that's the position Brown has got us into. Blair, and Cambell walked away, because they knew what was coming. They had had their 10 years!!

[carol-ann 12 Mar 2008 09:33:27]

To those who have never progressed from the amoeba stage, might not understand the concept of personal growth; if they did they might understand that those higher up on the Darwinian scale can and do change and move on.
I am not the same person I was ten years ago, even five years ago - I suggest that GB has moved on, too.
Marriage and children make a big difference to ones perspective and the tragedies that GB has suffered have no doubt had a deep effect on him.
I think Gordon has moved on and 'grown' emotionally as well as intellectually and I think the idea of him as a control freak doesn't apply, today, in the same ways as it might have 10 years ago.
It is a trait that has been grossly exaggerated.

It is also an insult to Alistair Darling to keep implying that he hasn't done this budget himself. He is a highly intelligent man and although he will have, of course, spoken to GB about it as you would any major government policy, he will want to establish his own credentials.

I think everyone gets a bit hysterical about the budget anyway because most of it is probably done by senior civil servants anyway and that most of the plans have already been forecast for 3 years ahead.

[Mike Simpson 12 Mar 2008 09:10:18]

Alistair be a darling and come up with a budget for middle-income earners and hard working families - the true backbone of the British economy.

[T.J. from Ireland 12 Mar 2008 09:08:31]

Anyone just watching Sky News? When the poor Sky reporter, reporting on the Budget, was nearly hit with planks of wood from some rooftop in Downing Street. Now they may claim it was the wind. But was it some sinister plot to stifle the press???
Conspiracy theorist discuss!!

[Elizabeth Davies Cape Town 12 Mar 2008 05:23:09]

Darling his own man! I doubt that. Brown of Browning Street will have none of that.

[Mentor - Northumberland 11 Mar 2008 23:52:50]

The question should "is Darling prepared to open his performance with the truth"?

Announce that once again a Labour Government have Bankrupted the Country.

And guess what, we are all going to get shafted with increased taxation plus a few more for good measure!

All in the very best of taste of course - Save the Planet tax's by the shed load!

5:0pm Wednesday the 12th March 2008 it will be the chemists biggest day in the sale of Anti-Depressants!

1979 x 10 = 2010.
With no Margaret Thatcher to sort the mess out this time.
Time to get the hell off the Titanic that is the Former UK.

[Bill, Middle England 11 Mar 2008 22:54:41]

Not much odds on a healthy public purse and an economy fit for purpose.

Much has changed since 1997 and very little for the better.

The Budget, as with New Lab, will be more myth than hit.

[T. England 11 Mar 2008 19:56:01]

Where’s the clunking fist? That’s right! It’s next door clumsily fiddling with things!
McBottler will have had Darling working up a sweat over every calculation, but who would want that handme down job anyhow?!
Can you imagine having to stand up in front of the whole country with EVERYONE & their mum knowing that McBottlers sweaty hands are all over what you are about to tell the world is all your own work?! Funny or what? I can’t wait to see both their faces go red as Darling reads it out :- )

This budget no matter how its put is just going to add to the pain most are already feeling!
Just a few pence here & there is unwelcomed!
Our wages just don’t seem to be able to keep up anymore!
I ask you to look at your wage packet and then remember what you were earning say ten years ago, look at how much things cost now & how much more you have to pay out for & what are you left with? Life under a Labour government! Hurts doesn’t it?

We don’t have yuppies anymore but the modern day equivalents are getting their bum kicked roundabout now! You have to feel for them as they won’t get to up-grade their Porsche this year!
The rest of us having to live on more modest wages & pay for everything the government throw at us as we don’t have the money not too!!!! Aren’t happy!!!!!!!!

Buget!
Just ANOTHER money grab!

[Khalid 11 Mar 2008 19:03:09]

Well Im sure darling will not be wearing a beard or act like [The Vandals] as he tells the nation [Here I Am Lord]
What are the odds on him doing something good for future prosperity ?