The Budget used to be easy. In childhood it felt as though at some point around St Patrick’s Day a grey man with a battered red case would stand in front of a black door beside a previously invisible wife. Some time after the evening news your father would hurrumph that it doesn’t make any difference anyway.
From a distance of 35 years, it was all about fags and booze. The following day, simple graphics would appear in the paper showing a penny on a packet of B&H and ha’penny on a pint. Life would go on until the next time.
The order of cost/benefit was neatly prescribed. If the Tories were in power, there would be some chat about taxes going down. If it was the other side (though that was less frequent, barely remembered) talk would be of taxes going the other way.
Still, no matter who was in power, it was alien, a ruling class who’d chat to each other, hand down pronouncements, then we’d all get back to where we were. We didn’t even really see them until 25 years ago when live TV broadcasts were okayed for the Commons.
Now, there is much more vision but much less clarity.
The idea of George Osborne raising the threshold for a higher rate of tax was leaked at least a week before the Budget. This helps higher and medium-high earners. It continues to build the position that George’s party have played well since the election; that they are for the ‘hard-working’ many allowing the grafters to keep brass in pocket.