The budget today represented yet another genius stroke in politics designed to achieve principally nothing and annoy no one.
Yes there were real increases for NHS spending and the normal petrol, beer and wines increases but nothing for pensioners except a miserly one off £100, nothing for inheritance tax improvements, nothing for income tax in general and nothing really for business, particularly the small business person.
He said nothing on ISAs again and did not increase the personal allowance as much as he should have given the freeze on this last year. We are disappointed to say that much of what was announced in the pre-budget speech in November has remained unchanged.
The Chancellor has played it the same as we would expect any Chancellor do so at this time in his term of office - drastic changes will only happen if this Government are approaching Election time and are either chasing votes or have given up!
We will analyse the budget impact over the next few days and give you our views in this column. Initial view though is - a cop out budget! Expect tax rises over the next few years to deal with the borrowing requirements!