Don't Listen and Watch - Read

I have said it for the last two years and I say it again today. Don't give any credence to what the Chancellor says in the budget speech. Wait until the world has analysed all the hidden stuff that the Chancellor doesn't have the guts to tell us.

PMQs was interesting. The Prime Minister is still in denial about the causes of recession and the impacts. The Chancellor is either going to have to contradict during the budget him or be complicit in another piece of totally unbelievable Spin.

Balls doesn't care

Guido has highlighted Ed Balls' reaction to the excellent put down of him by David Cameron yesterday.

Underlying this is an appalling attitude from a Minister of state which is, to me, of more concern than the fact that Balls doesn't like it up 'im.

Cameron was making comment about the appalling levels of taxation in today's Britain, Balls' response was "So What." That is a disgraceful comment and just shows the utter contempt that the Government shows for the people that they serve. This is the reason why people are falling out with politicians as much as it is about conduct.

Why the Media Should Report the Budget on Friday

Guido is doing a great job of highlighting the economic failures of the New Labour project and the ways and means that the persistent spinmongers are using to hide the reality from the public. They won't be able to hide much longer.

It does seem that the media have failed to learn from New Labour's spin tactics on budget day, maybe it is about time they did. Alastair Darling will, almost certainly, follow in the footsteps of the previous incompetent and deluded incumbent of No 11 and spin the budget speech as a great giveaway, only for the truth to emerge from closer analysis of the budget book. The media need to respond to this by burying their reporting of the budget speech deep within their papers and using the front page on Friday to report the inevitable deceit in the budget speech and the emerging truth.

Conservative Home and trust in politicians

I thought this post from Conservative Home was really insightful. It does a great job of highlighting how the deceit in Gordon Brown's budget harms the reputation of politics in general. In particular the comment that "hardly anyone believes a word from any politician" as a consequence of the Blair-Brown Project is both powerful and true.

It is my belief that the Conservative strategy should be as much about fundamentally improving the delivery of politics as it is about improving public services.

The Secrets Start to Emerge

First reactions to the budget were mixed, I suspect more considered reactions will be more hostile. The headline cut of 2p off income tax was marred by the realisation that raising the lower rate by 10p means that anyone earning less than £15k a year will be worse off.

The green taxes were very limited in scope and will not have much effect. I still think that taxing poor performing engines is a far better solution than taxing certain types of car. What incentive is there for a manufacturer to develop a hyper-efficient engine for a 4x4 (or even a Renault Espace for that matter)? What ever engine is under the bonnet they are paying the same increase in Vehicle Tax.

It has now been recognised that the headline cut in Corporation Tax hides other stealth taxes on business that will see taxes increase over the next few years.

Politically the Conservatives were right that, rather than shooting David Cameron's fox, Gordon Brown has endorsed the Conservative approach to taxation, but without doing anything that gives the impression that he actually means it, nor that he understands and recognises the poor state we are in, in terms of our ability to compete economically.

The Ruthless Stalinist's Biggest Day Out

Gordon Brown faces a critical day tomorrow. It is perhaps win or bust time, the final point at which Gordon Brown can see off any serious potential rivals for the Labour Leadership. If he blows it you will probably see his odds of succeeding Blair lengthening.

The difficulty is that he has to succeed at a very difficult balancing act. To gain the confidence of the general public he has to avoid stealth taxes, in fact he probably needs to reduce the overall tax burden and commit to lowering it in future; yet to succeed with the grass roots of the Labour Party he has to be seen to be moving towards their agenda - a direction that is historically not one that is compatible with tax-cutting.

To start to win over David Cameron, he has to show that he has got to grips with the Green agenda, which he singularly failed to do with his disastrous tax hike on air travel. Similar failures to find Green taxes that fail to incentivise good behaviour will simply prove that he still doesn't understand the issue.

To start to win with Lib Dem voters he has to show he isn't Menzies Campbell (i.e. over promoted and already past his best!!).

As ever with Mr Brown's budget, it will be impossible to provide an accurate analysis because he isn't big enough to stand up and announce the bad parts of his budgets in the House, preferring the cowardly approach of burying the painful stuff deep within the supporting paperwork. It is only as those things are discovered that a real analysis can be undertaken.