“The Chancellor’s speech will please whisky drinking, bingo playing, pensioners.”
One has to approach Budgets with caution a little like an unexploded bomb.
They may look harmless on the outside and today’s effort from George Osborne largely does but they can explode at any moment.
In 2012 the Budget looked OK at first but it only took a few minutes before phrases such as the pasty tax, the granny tax, the caravan tax and ultimately the omnishambles, entered the political dictionary.
On first inspection this year’s effort looks sober, solid and unlikely to either blow or fall apart.
Beforehand there was much talk of Osborne pulling a rabbit from the hat, it was being dubbed the Bunny Budget.
But in the end bunny came there none.
Unless you count Ed Miliband who seemed a bit rabbit-in-the-headlights in his response.
His reply to the Chancellor has been universally written off as lacklustre and unimpressive among the press gallery.
However in the country it may have gone down better, there was certainly a few useful soundbites for the evening news bulletins in there hammering home the message that people are worse off under this government.
Largely the Chancellor’s speech will please whisky drinking, bingo playing pensioners. Booze duty was frozen, bingo tax cut and there was a host of attractive measures to please pensioners and savers.
Given all the talk at Westminster at the moment about the Tory party leadership it may well work out well for Osborne on that front too.
There was some fun for tax purposes motor marques the Austin Allegro and Reliant Robin, Del Boy and Rodney’s transport of choice, are now classified as classic cars.
And he cracked a proper ripsnorter of a joke at Ed Miliband’s expense. Announcing cash to mark the anniversary of the Magna Carta next year, he mentioned that the historic document was signed by a weak leader who betrayed his brother and had to make a deal with a bunch of unruly barons.
Plus Sneering George, the lover of budget cuts, was replaced with a cuddlier figure announcing cash for regional theatre, repairs to churches, Scouts and Guides and air ambulance and lifeboat charities.
Never mind the financial winners and losers of this Budget, George Osborne may well emerge as the big political winner.
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