George Osborne to watch fuel prices 'like a hawk'

The eyes have it!

It's good to hear that the windfall tax on oil companies announced in the Budget will not be passed on to motorists in higher fuel prices.  George Osborne says ministers will be "watching like hawks" and will be wanting to "make sure" the tax rise is not passed on to motorists. I hope his talons are sharpened. A visit to his manicurist may be in order.

The Budget was like a curate's egg. Good in parts. Still no mention of clawing back the tax that large corporations just don't pay. Maybe the hawks have diplopia like me. In which case a good pair of spectacles might help or a hawk with gimlet eyes!

George Osborne pledges Budget growth for economy

"My box of tricks"

George Osborne is about to get up and tell us whether we are going to be better off or worse off. That's the usual stuff of budgets and chancellors. However, this budget is different, I think. We can either carry on with boom and bust or we can all be grown up and realise that the economy does not work itself but we work the economy.

The Coalition is doing some good things. It is doing some odd things. I don't think it has done that many bad things so far. However, they talk about tackling corporate sleaze but appear to be doing it through clenched teeth. It's no good talking to the bosses of big business as if one is attending an amateur ventriloquists convention. "Gottle of geer!" is no way to convince the bamboozlers we are serious.

Britain needs entrepreneurial activity, it needs new ideas for new products, it needs workers working sensible hours for good pay. It short we need to create real added value to everything we do. What we have had in recent years is fake money creating fake wealth. I saw the Bank of England officials withering under the scrutiny of the Treasury Select Committee. The Bank has a nice little video about "quantitative easing" (the 21st century's best  ever euphemism!) where they admit that money is created electronically. The female voiceover makes you think it is all so wonderful. Like a holiday in the Canaries!

THEY CREATE THE MONEY OUT OF THIN AIR!!!

So if George Osborne can turn the culture of bogus bond creation around, turn the fiddlers and fakers out and bring in the real workers, the real ideas people, the entrepreneurs, the wealth creators, then we will all be better off.

Let the bamboozlers pay their taxes, let the electronic moneymakers get a real shock from their machines, and turn the so-called tax havens into tax harvests.

If we are all in this together, we should be going in the same direction, for similar goals and similar aims.

Budget taxes but no flights of fancy

I knew we would be given the stick first and carrot second. It doesn't appear too bad all round. The Coalition should not worry about upsetting people. Most sensible people are resigned to the fact that the deficit needs to be removed as quickly and efficiently as possible. If anything is going to upset the taxation applecart it will be the media. They can't help trying to drive a wedge between the Tories and LibDems. It's OK for Harriet Harman to snipe away. That's her job as she sees it. But I think it's a bit rich for the BBC to harp on about who is sitting beside whom on the front bench etc, etc.

Given the media frenzy before the budget was even delivered I half thought Ryanair's chief executive Michael O'Leary was going to be chancellor for the day. £1 off this and that but VAT on breathing! As Michael Winner might say, "Calm down, my dears. Calm down".

The Coalition has its fans. I'm one of them. Better a coalition than a washed out Labour administration. If the prime minister is to get any trouble, though, it won't be from the opposition. It will be from some on his own side and from some in the media. I've noticed that Tories who favour the coalition call their LibDem colleagues "honourable friends" and those that don't call them "honourable gentlemen" (or ladies, of course!). It works equally well from the LibDem perspective. An easy way to spot possible troublemakers.

The media seem to be uncertain about coalition politics. It's taking their mindsets some time to adjust. They also have a difficulty with the opposition. Harriet Harman is sometimes described as the Leader of the Opposition and sometimes as the Acting Leader of the Labour Party. It all depends on what point is trying to be made.

Anyway, austerity times apart, I think it may well work out rather well.

Darling gets 50% of top earners' takings!

I've not contemplated the budget in any great detail, but have chanced to read that those earning over £150,000 will have the top slice cut in half. Not exactly an Old Labour tactic, more an Up-To-Our-Necks-In-It Labour reaction. Forget about Sats and league tables at schools. All school leavers will have to use every ounce of grey matter figuring out how to pay back the dire results of Gordon Brown's reckless abandonment of Prudence. Because we are all involved and will all be involved for a very long time.

Those about to get the big bucks and bonuses creamed off the top of their pay packets may feel aggrieved. If they ever voted for this lot, then it's one big fat free range chicken coming home to roost. They should know that it always ends in tears for Labour.

The Confederation of British Industry puts it quite well when it says that this budget does not set out a "credible and rigorous" path to recovery. No, it doesn't. Gordon Brown has not been credible in much of this. Ever since the sub-prime fiasco came tumbling apart, he has sought to suggest it was all the fault of others. They were involved, certainly, but his "light touch" allowed those who should have known better to turn blind eyes, to keep quiet about dodgy dealings or to bury their heads in their hands.

He knew the economy was all going pear-shaped long before he eventually admitted it publically. How anyone could think that a further five years of a Labour government is worth contemplating, I do not know.

Darling's daring budget?

I sincerely hope that Alistair Darling recognises in his budget that we are in a mess but that we are all keen to get out of it as soon as possible. The time has past for yah-boo politics. We need to draw a line in the sand and move on. No more cover-ups, financial denial or blaming others.

He should explain, without spin, all the detail that is going to help the economy. Pure facts and not spun statistics. And he needs to keep Gordon Brown well away from it all.

If we are to get government plans, such as a car scrappage scheme, let him tell us honestly what it will cost and how it will work. We have been promised mortgage rescue schemes, business loan schemes, etc. All seem vague and wishy-washy. The funding detail is never properly disclosed.

A budget without spin or subterfuge will benefit us all regardless of our political views and our personal circumstances.