Planning to grow
Britain’s planning laws have long been an impediment to growth because they resist development. So it is encouraging that the Budget contained ideas for reforming them
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UK Budget 2011
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Coalition leaders in tune on Plan A
Nick Clegg has accidentally revealed how George Osborne’s second Budget has had a remarkably unifying effect on the coalition, while Labour has stepped up attacks on the chancellor
WPP signals UK return after Budget changes
Corporate tax return could entice world’s largest marketing services group back home
Osborne looks at scrapping 50p rate in 2013
Evidence grows of widespread avoidance of levy
N Ireland on course to win tax power
Treasury sends signal on corporate rates
Investment warnings follow tax raid on oil
Many companies re-evaluate investment decisions
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Comment & analysis
The complaints come marching in
There are no good alternatives to UK austerity. The opposition must show that the gamble they are advocating is more likely to pay off than the government’s
How to avoid 20 lean years
Has the government a positive growth strategy? Over the short to medium term the answer is no, except to the extent that it averted fiscal calamity, writes Martin Wolf
The chancellor’s autopilot is locked to Plan A
Setting a floor price for carbon is good sense. Who knows, tax credits for small company R&D might turn Britain into a nation of entrepreneurs, says Philip Stephens
All hail the March of the Makers
Robert Shrimsley on a dull Budget, high on rhetoric but limited in reality which will soon be forgotten amid the continued shelling of tax rises and spending cuts
Rebalancing is a distant promise
If economic activity stalls today – with the inevitable loss of skills and capital that this entails – future prospects will be seriously impaired, writes Kate Barker
Every word a dart in Brown’s corpse
British chancellors lack the simple honesty of Balkan tyrants. This was, he kept saying, a plan for growth, writes Matthew Engel
A forgettable Budget
The striking thing about the newish and independent Office for Budget Responsibility is the number of times it has taken the approach – ‘We hear what you are saying, but forget it’
Osborne makes the best of a bad hand
Much ado about little: it is hard to reach a different conclusion. On fiscal policy the chancellor has already proposed; the economy will dispose, writes Martin Wolf
Tale of Osborne as an unlikely Robin Hood
Osborne, we were told, would offer a ‘Robin Hood’ budget. It is a bold piece of branding, ranking alongside Jeremy Clarkson’s environmentalism, writes Tim Harford
