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Back to the future

• Robert Peston
• 22 Mar 07, 09:42 AM

I felt almost nostalgic this morning when reviewing : it was very much in the tradition of Brown鈥檚 early Budgets and manifests the great paradoxes in his version of New Labour.

Here鈥檚 why:

1) Like those early Budgets, it imposed relatively tight constraints on public spending growth;
2) It was very good for the City, the creative industries and the service sector;
3) At best, it did nothing for Britain鈥檚 hard-pressed manufacturing sector and at worst it was harmful;
4) It was a reforming Budget in that it has undoubtedly simplified the personal tax and corporate tax systems (although much of what he proposes is simply a reversal of the tax-complexity of his own making);
5) It was rational, in aligning capital allowances with economic rates of depreciation;
6) It was tough on those individuals whom he perceives to be 鈥済aming鈥� the tax system, disguising themselves as small businesses (though in the process, he has probably hurt some proper small businesses);
7) It heaped its rewards on working families with children in the middle to low income brackets, took next-to-nothing from those on highest incomes, and contributed little to the childless at the bottom of the income scale;
8) He fudged the presentation of the Budget, in that he wanted it to be seen as both a serious reforming budget and a bribe to Daily Mail readers.

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