Today’s Budget was most certainly a political one, a set-up for the general election that must be held between now and this time next year. It contains little to actually get us out of the recession we’re in, and a lot that will just bury us in debt.

The Good

Annual limit for tax-free ISAs to rise to more than £10,200 for over-50s this year and for everyone else next year. Of that amount £5,100 can be saved in cash.

This is actually a measure that will help people and encourage saving. What got us into this mess was a massive over-reliance on credit. Any measure that will incentivise people to save is a Good Thing, and increasing the tax-free savings is the way to do it.

An extra £9bn in efficiency savings is planned

Saving money through making government more effective is again a unequivoical Good Thing. It’s just that most of the inefficiencies were created by Labour, so it’s their fault in the first place!

The Bad

Alcohol taxes to go up 2% from midnight – putting the price of the average pint up 1p.

Tax on tobacco to go up by 2% from 6pm – equivalent to an extra 7p on a pack of 20 cigarettes

Predictable, but yet another tax on those of us who want to live our lives. I mean, how much have Labour put on alcohol and cigarettes over the last 12 years? They’ve put up the taxes every single Budget!

Fuel duty to rise by 2p per litre from September, then by 1p a litre above indexation each April for the next four years.

Yet more tax on the motorists! Aren’t we pumped enough? ["Pumped", geddit?]

Public borrowing to increase to £175bn this year.

Borrowing levels to be £173bn, £140bn, £118bn and £97bn in years after.

These borrowing levels are now nigh on criminally high, and definitely won’t go down at the rate the Treasury suggest – making it a dishonest budget. The economy almost certainly won’t grow at 3.5% in 2011 – that’s absurdly optimistic and based on nothing more than a wish and a prayer.

And The Damn Stupid

Income tax for those earning more than £150,000 to rise to 50% from April 2010.

Tax relief on pensions to be reduced for people on more than £150,000 a year from April 2011

This will raise bugger-all and mean that anyone with half a brain will employ tax avoidance and get as much of their money as possible elsewhere. And taxing them more on the rest of their income will mean that they have less to actually spend in the real economy. It will drive away investors and high-earners from the country.

However, it’s even wose than that – the tax rises are delayed for one or two years! That’s just sneaky, announcing a tax that won’t come into force for a year or more by which time people have forgotten about. Plus in this case it’s even worse – Labour have to call an election by the time the 50% tax limit comes into force. Within a maximum of a month it is likely (though certainly not definite) that there will be a different government – a Conservative one. How dare they announce a tax rise that won’t come into force until the next parliament!

From next month until March 2010 motorists to get £2,000 discount on new cars if they trade in cars older than 10 years. The government will provide £1,000 with the industry expected to provide the other half.

This is the most stupid damn thing proposed in this budget. To scrap perfectly good cars is seriously stupid and certainly not green – 10 year-old cars still have years left in them and this will just mean that years left in the machinery will be wasted – the new cars aren’t that much greener than the old ones, not enough to make up for the years of wasted usage.

Also, this plan relies on people who own cars that are 10 years old or older having enough money – even with this £2,000 discount – to be able to afford to buy and insure a new car. If they have a car that old, the odds are they can’t.

Another apprently overlooked problem with this is that even if it was possible for people with cars of that age to be able to afford the cost of a new car that would then just mean that no new driver would be able to afford their own car as few of an age that they afford to buy or insure would exist! This has to be the most stupid, ridiculous, and ill-thought out scheme ever suggested in a Budget.

***

This is a budget with few good bits, but mostly bad bits and damn stupid bits. This government is burying us in debt and hasn’t even though about getting us out the hole they’re digging. But I think that by then they don’t expect to be in government by then, so they don’t care!

This was a political budget, not one to get us out of the recession.