No pain, no gain

In a perverse kind of way, you have to admire George Osborne's nerve - most obviously for insisting on the necessity of a further £3.5 billion of cuts under the austerity banner and "readjusting" the overseas aid budget to the tune of £650 million while at the same time slashing both corporation tax and capital gains tax. He clearly feels that persecuting the disadvantaged is a small price to pay for keeping his chums in caviar.

Further evidence includes the bizarre decision to undermine an increase in the climate change levy by simultaneously cutting the supplementary tax charge on oil and gas by 10 per cent, and the increased funding for flood defences, which is very much a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has been allowed to bolt.

Elsewhere, the Budget underlines that the Tories continue to persist with the idiotic idea of removing schools from local authority control, while councils already under huge strain thanks to Osborne's cuts will have to face up to a further reduction in funds due to the cut to business rates.

Still, from the perspective of self-interest (and let's face it, that's the perspective the Tories would like us to take on everything), the "help to save" scheme might be useful in enabling us to finally get onto a property ladder that, even now we're in our late thirties, remains out of reach. Cheers George.