UK Budget, March 21 2007 - Comment
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Treasury ponders waning powers
The UK chancellor has invigorated his department, but some see its dominance as unhealthy and warn it could be heading for a fall.
Matthew Engel: Macavity delivers a coup de théâtre
The chancellor’s tax ace left Cameron palpably winded and may help the poll standing of a Brown premiership – currently dead-heating with a flu epidemic.
Brown tidies up before he takes his leave
By setting important aspects of fiscal policy for the years he expects to be in Downing Street, he has left his successor a tidy space but little room for manoeuvre.
Philip Stephens: Gordon will sorely miss Tony
I suspect also that Blair has been an important restraint on Brown’s interventionist ambitions. If so, it has been to the chancellor’s advantage
Epic boasts, good luck and the same old doubts
The chancellor’s good fortune is the result of a laisser passer from the markets, as well as the structure of the British economy
Nicholas Timmins: Britain’s paradox of public spending
Britons appear to want European levels of welfare state provision but would rather pay for that with US levels of taxation.
Jonathan Guthrie: Brown giveth, taketh away
It may be unkind to compare Brown to a washed-up conjuror failing to deceive a kiddies party. But it is apt.
Tony Jackson: City must give credit where due
Aside from the creation of an independent central bank, the most decisive step of Brown’s years in office from a City perspective has been the setting up of a super-regulator, the Financial Services Authority.
Chris Giles: Bright picture at odds with reality
Chancellor’s actions show he is in a deep tunnel with no certainty he will emerge in time to end the fiscal squeeze before the next election.
Philip Stephens: A Budget worthy of the Kremlin
On Tuesday the chancellor woke up to headlines about his “Stalinist ruthlessness”. His response? To bow out from the Treasury with a Budget, well, almost Soviet in its style, reach and sheer relentlessness.
