The Chancellor’s Budget today was less of an economic report and more a p0litical fight with the opposition. With an election weeks away, it was always going to be a Labour party broadcast rather than a government’s budget, but the attacks on the opposition were simply disgusting. The constant “Mr deputy speaker, we have invested when the others wouldn’t have and the economy would have therefore been in a worse condition” nonsense was repeated many times by the chancellor.

We got the usual fuel, cigarettes and alcohol tax rises. Interestingly, the fuel duty increase is 3p by the end of the year, but staggered at three individual 1p rises – this is deliberate because it would not look good to have a 3p rise form 1 April – days before the election is called.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the budget, in an otherwise dull and uneventful statement was the announcement that the government is looking to sell off various assets including the Dartford crossing in order to provide more money in the system. The problem here is that the money raised is only for the short term as it is single use money. Once spent, it won’t recycle itself back into the treasury pot.

The main problem with the budget was it’s length. It’s dullness and general lack of anything new. What we have is a tired government, a government that has run out of ideas and a government that has run it’s course and now needs to call it a day and let someone else have a go at putting the country back on track.

Above all, what the chancellor fails to realise is that this is a phantom budget. A budget that will never get to legislation because in 43 days time the country goes to the polls to select a new government.

The stamp duty proposal has been completely copied out of Conservative policy. The government intends to continue to borrow over £100bn per year for the next 6 years. It continues to impose a tax on everything whether it’s cars, cider, phones or shoes. The country simply cannot go on like this.

I could go on, but it will be too boring – much like the Chancellor’s statement. In summary, today’s budget sums up this government. As Cameron quite rightly said, in 13 wasted years we have gone from top of the premier league to bottom of the conference league. It’s a disgrace, this government should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for taking this country down as far as it has.

What is clear is that Labour has done it again. For the fourth time, they have completely failed on the economy and have completely failed in their job of running the country. They are simply unfit to run this country and Britain does not need this Prime Minister, it needs a new direction under new leadership with new energy.

So, the figures are out. Britain is out of recession. Statistically that is, however we all know that the effects of a recession go on long after the economic slump has ended. Today’s figures showing a 0.1% growth in the final quarter of 2009 was the first period of growth for 18 months. But, that doesn’t tell the real story. Of course, the headlines Downing Street wants pumped out is “Britain out of Recession”. The government will claim that our coming out of recession is mainly due to the measures they put in to protect the economy.

The problem is of course, that’s not the truth. If you walk into clothes retailers on the high street, they will tell you that business is slow. If you go to hotels they will tell you it’s quiet. The simple fact is that the final quarter of 2009 included Christmas and thus it’s no surprise that there was slight economic growth due to people buying presents.

0.1% is an incredibly small growth and there is nothing to suggest that the economy will continue to grow in the 1st quarter of 2010. The labour government inherited a strong economy. We know this because they committed to Tory spending plans for the first three years of government. After that time, the economy started to slide and there’s only been one party in power during this time. Brown claimed we were best prepared to weather the storm, yet we were the first G20 nation into recession and we’re the last out of it.  Meanwhile, each newly born baby is saddled with £17,000 of debt and this is what Gordon and his moronic crew believe to be ‘best placed’!

Whatever the next few months holds for our economy doesn’t particularly matter when it comes to the election. many people are very much of the mind that it is Labour who has caused this mess. They’ve had their chance to make the country better and they’ve spectacularly failed. The British electorate will not forgive them for that and now the time is up. Despite the left still claiming there’s a chance Labour will win the next election, a poll out for Channel 4 last night by ICM shows that people will not reward Brown for ending the recession. Some 46% feel worse of now than they did 12 months ago. That’s a staggering increase and shows just how many people this Labour recession has had a large negative impact on.

The last chance Brown had was if today’s figures showed reasonable growth. But they haven’t and the growth is only just growth. Things are much much worse than we may have thought a few months ago. That emergency budget from Osborne is looking more and more needed as the weeks go by.

First it was France and Germany, ow the US have come out of recession and we are still firmly in it with a 0.4% contraction in the last quarter. Remember all that chat form labour about how you need to invest and spend you way out of a recession? Remember how wrong the Tories were about the need for spending cuts and, oh yes, remember how Britain was best placed to weather the storm?

Perhaps that all looks a bit wrong now doesn’t it?

Gordon will not admit it but his great gamble of record borrowing has not paid off and has made him and in turn the country the laughing stock the world over. Even if Britain pulls itself out of recession by the beginning of 2010 we will still be one of the last of the world’s big economies to come out of recession. I tend to look at the markets to judge where the economy will be in 6 months and we’ve only fairly recently seen a steady rise in the FTSE100. By my reckoning we’ll be officially out of recession by the 2nd quarter of 2010, but just because we’ll be out of recession will not mean that the economy is all rosy again.

The unemployment rate continues to rise and will probably peak at over 3 million. Consumer confidence is still very low

We have to remember that our economy has shrunk by 5.9% since we went into recession. That is quite a jump for an economy of our size. It will take a long time to recover, it will be painful during the process but we’ll get there.

As a side thought. If every baby born today is born having to saddle about £25,000 of debt as a result of Labour’s economic incompetence then what happens if  we stop having babies? Who will pay the money back?