The commissar is expecting to move on. That is evident from yesterday’s Budget, Gordon Brown’s 11th and, one assumes, last. It contained the habitual boasts of targets fulfilled and competitor nations “buried”. It contained the mind-numbing details of the Brown plans for improvement in every corner of British life. But it also contained some bold initiatives. Yet if one looks carefully, one finds that he is not so much robbing Peter to pay Paul, as robbing Peter to pay Peter. This was sleight of hand, pleasing to the Labour backbenchers, but of little economic significance.

Overall, as was always expected, the Budget is close to neutral. How, then, has the chancellor been able to finance his two most exciting announcements: the reduction in the rate of corporation tax from 30 to 28 per cent, at a cost of £2.23bn from an indexed base in 2009-10, and the reduction in the base rate from 22p to 20p, at a cost of £9.64bn? The answers are simple: the former is financed by cutting capital allowances, worth £2.27bn in 2009-10; and the latter is largely financed by the elimination of the 10p starting rate of income tax, worth an additional £8.63bn in 2009-10.