No giveaway in March pre-election budget

This will be the 14th Labour budget since Tony Blair’s landslide victory in May 1997 however this budget will be very political. Chancellor Alistair Darling has mentioned that he did not plan any generous giveaways in his March 24 budget.

Darling confirmed to the BBC that he was committed to halving the record budget deficit over the next four years; he believes that if it was cut faster as the Conservatives planned it “would run the risk … of tipping us back into recession.”

The budget that is so close to the general election usual ends up a pre-election giveaway budget, just like in 1987 when Nigel Lawson cut 2p off the basic rate of income tax, or when Ken Clarke in 1996, offered a small tax cut in compensation for the four years of fiscal austerity just endured. No this budget Darling will have to use what he has got. Labour will have to use this budget to their advantage by claiming the fragile state of the economy makes a vote for Conservative plain and simply dangerous.

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