Budget update

Yawn, the most boring budget for ages. Given the difficult straights in which the Government finds its badly managed finance there were not too many tax rises. Boring budgets are good budgets though, they mean less taxes have been raised.

The tax rises are generally on the consumption side which is overall a good thing; at least you can try and avoid some of these taxes if you want too.

However, the over-arching feeling is of the nanny-state reaching into our lives even further, trying to dissuade us from bad behaviours like drinking a glass of red or driving a car.

This is less a budget than a missionary statement which shows the dead hand of Gordon Brown behind even the minutiae.

There are some more specific energy points that I will leave to Nick Drew to cover off later in the week.

As an assessment though it shows how poorly a state the country is in, over-taxed to the point at which the Government dare not raise too much more revenue even when it needs to. Instead making us poorer in the future by borrowing now to cover future spending. We have not even had a recession and are already at a 2.9% budget deficit, this could easily shoot to near on 5% in the next couple of years. Bumpy ride ahead.