If Gordon Brown is feeling bruised there was not a hint of it in the delivery of his 11th budget. On Tuesday the chancellor woke up to headlines about his “Stalinist ruthlessness” and cynical disregard for cabinet colleagues. His response to this extraordinarily candid character critique from Andrew Turnbull, the former cabinet secretary? To bow out from the Treasury with a Budget, well, almost Soviet in its style, reach and sheer relentlessness.

Video: The FT’s Budget assessment

Chris Giles, economics editor, analyses the tax changes

British Budgets used to be about economics. For Mr Brown everything is politics. All those statistics, forecasts, tax and public spending changes are matériel for the political battleground with David Cameron’s Conservatives. No more so than now, when the prime minister presumptive believes he is at last within clear sight of the prize he has coveted for a political lifetime.