Alistair Darling’s package of tax measures on Monday amounted to the most transparently redistributive budget statement of the past 30 years.

As tax specialists absorbed the details of a statement that created pronounced categories of winners and losers, Lisa Harker, of the Institute for Public Policy Research, said: “By introducing a higher rate of tax, raising national insurance contributions, rebalancing and increasing personal tax allowances and enhancing child and pensioner benefits, the tax burden will be shifted away from those who can least afford to shoulder it.”