Darling’s budget: Thatcherite, red or mildly pink?
The old cliche about badly-received budgets turning out for the best (and vice versa) is worth trotting out this morning, if for no other reason than that I have not read it elsewhere.
Media coverage of the budget is mostly pretty harsh.
Naturally, most of the good items on the Treasury tree, the small details of policy intended to help the poor, the old, the unskilled and unemployed, get downgraded in budget coverage.
As for those tentative moves towards a greener economy, the environmentalists are all crying that it wasn’t enough. Did you ever meet a grateful Green?
I have my own concerns, chiefly focused on the inherent implausibility of the economy bouncing back fast enough to generate 3.5% growth in 2011, thereby starting to eat into the debt mountain.
What David Cameron wittily calls the “trampoline” recovery is not impossible, as the gloomsters assert. That’s what flexible economies do – but, all the same, it’s just unlikely.
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Darling’s budget: Thatcherite, red or mildly pink?