Instant Budget reactions - LIVE

Lower stamp duty - why the support for the housing market. help to first time buyers would be better if house prices fell.

Growth predictions - 3% next year is very optimistic, most economists reckon about 2.2%. This difference is huge in terms of its effects on our total debt.

Debt - Good news debt is only at £167 billion, but still the worst ever by a country mile.

Cider attack- No votes for Labour in South West UK then. hit the drinkers overall, as per usual.

Huge tax rises announced overall, £19 billion pounds worth.

INCREASE IN PUBLIC SPENDING NEXT YEAR OF 2.2%!!! Labour will never cut, if they win the election its IMF time for sure now. Fantasy of pretending that after next year there will be huge spending cuts which are not being announced or even mentioned yet.

blah blah...Limit of 1% for senior civil servants after 2011, London civil servants to be reduced, 15,000 posts over 5 years. Tiny other cuts suggested. Benefits payments not to go to people living in mansions at state expense. They reckon £20 billion of cuts; the deficit is £167 billion.

The cuts, which are only optimistic, ar enot as much as the tax rises - this is Labour - robbing you for their client state votes.

Also looking to sell Tote - 2 years and counting!

So what will cut the deficit - Darling says growth - the last refuge of a soundrel chancellor.

So now huge intervention into private sector suggested to get this - ordering banks to lend, which can only mean reducing their credit criteria and so undermining their recovery. Good to see Labour interfering with its cowed banks. £94 billion of new lending from RBS and Lloyds - can't see that helping their share prices.

Apparently some small new funding for small businesses too, but still the core tax on small business goes up this year. But business rates to be reduced for one year,  and some reduce on rates for business investment. overall, these are good ideas and surprisingl progressive from a Labour chancellor. I wonder if the overall tax burden has gone up or down though with all these fiddly measures? My hunch is down, but could be wrong.

Energy strategy - still a mess, now a green investment bank to help the private sector. NO More offshore wind wibble - such a poor return on investment, if any - loss-making investments by the Government - terrible.

Digital Economy - support for Computer games industry, reduced taxes on patents. Oh dear, more state innovation funds, albeit tiny at £35 million.

Universities - 400,000 more UK citiznes is that, don't think so. Lots of uni places are for Europeans. Oooh, a modernisation fund for Universities, how mcuh of that will go back to Labour Party as a donation?

tax crack down - focus purely Ashcroft - nice and political then!

and its over.

TRADING - Closed punch at 79.5 - not much profi there after costs, no real impact of the budget. Leaving GBPT short ETF in place, pound off a bit on the fantasy forecast, 3% up so far. A hundred quid odd is ok for a quick in and nout.

Budget special . Car tax.

Already announced headline tax rises are the 1% on N.I. , which is a special double tax on employees and employers. Also the 50% tax rate for highest earners. The fuel duty rise, another double tax really with the VAT added to the rise.

Less talked about today is the car vehicle tax rise, announced like many stealth taxes, in the previous budget.
There is a reduction by 30% for those minuscule emission cars, like the 1.0 Toyota Aygo that no one actually buys, but a 5% rise on the lowest of Co2 emissions normal cars like a Ford Focus 1.6 or a Vauxhall Corsa..
The average driver in the very common band I, of a Golf or a Mazda 5 will see a 15% rise.

But the big jump in tax under the weakest ever green tax argument veil was the new car tax. This showroom tax is adding a considerable sum to a new car. Again, the band I will be £300 instead of £200. A 33% increase. A Mercedes C class tax will be £750. But of course the owner won't pay. The dealer will. Tax included will be part of the discount package. Except it won't. The vehicle tax increase surely will be added onto the price of a new car, and discounted off by a determined haggler, but increasing the price of the car, with VAT payable on the extra too. Double tax time again!

And add to this anything that the Chancellor has thought up for today. Ariel tax- car radio tax - tax for each vehicle wheel - Car door tax ...
Will he do a bicycle tax? He should, but it just doesn't fit the green initiative.

Note* If your vehicle tax is due in April you still have 1 week to buy it at the old price.

Deficit in a Spin

The Government borrowing for February is out today and the BBC et al have seen fit to say what a wonderful day it is as the numbers are not as bad as expected.

It seems that the number is about £3-4 billion better than was expected. Don;t be fooled though, Jan and Feb 2010 are the WORST EVER borrowing numbers for these months - historically they are months in surplus as tax is paid.

In fact, this is why the number has bounced, the Supertax on bankers bonus's and the late payement by private individuals struggling with the finances.

No doubt there will be crowing in the lefty media about the so called 'improvement'; which is nothing of the sort.

Also Gordon Brown will at this minute be threatening Alistair Darling with a Nokia insertion if he does not write all this saving into some tax giveaways at next weeks budget.

What do you think the pre-election giveaway will be?

Badger loses in Brown fight

Poor Alistair Darling, the man who has had to endure the forces of hell unleashed upon him. Not only was he totally unready to be made Chancellor 3 years ago, but also had the bad luck to follow the megalomaniac Gordon Brown.

Now, having survived in job through the most unprecedented economic crisis in history, the Labour spinners have had it that he has been trying to stand up to Gordon Brown and Ed Balls over the forthoming budget (I say that wistfully, it will be the latest budget ever if we get it and not an election). Appartenly he has been saying let's make some cuts in our gargantuan spending in the vain hope of preventing a Greek style Sovereign Crisis.

But today in the Sunday Times, it seems the battle is lost. He is sticking to last years policies with no new cuts in spending. Oh dear, last year he predicited the recession would be 50% less harmful than it was (just over 4%  loss of GDP rather than the actual 6%) . So this means following last year's budget is a pure fantast dreamland right from the start.

HM Treasury (where is the budget, spineless wonders?) have to revise a lot of numbers becuase they either keep getting them wrong or political pressure is proving too much and they keep massaging the right numbers. The fact is we need the truth desperately. How do I know this to be true? Well the Tories will not be nailed on any concrete economic policy, becuase they say they have no idea what is in the books. Given the massive electoral harm this is causing them, they would not be saying it if it were not true.

So there we have it, a nice political budget coming up. I suggested the other days ways of trading round it, seems this is likely to come to pass now on 24th March.