Britannia Radio

As is to be expected all the Labour comments [Mandelson, Reid, Hoyle, 
Yvette Cooper, Blears]  say how wonderful the Budget was and Tory 
front benchers [, Hammond, Clark ]  were predictably downbeat.  I 
happen to think the Tories were nearer the mark but for the sake of 
independence I'll ignore both lots!  All garnered from Politics 
Home's monitoring of broadcast media

I start with the much appreciated Vince Cable.  The common thread 
through these people is the fact that they don't believe Darling's 
figures.  In this as we've seen the IMF backs them to the hilt  (see 
earlier "IMF spoils Darling's day - "over optimistic"  and other 
comments"  )

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Politics Home 22.4.09
Cable: A wildly optimistic, scattered, tokenistic Budget
14:10 | 22/04/2009

Dr Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesman
Sky News

Dr Cable felt the Budget was "wildly optimistic", with "scattered" 
funding measures, and said the increase in the top tax rate was 
"tokenistic".

"Unfortunately these are wildly optimistic assumptions about a sudden 
recovery," he said, "on the basis of nothing whatever. There are no 
indications about what tough medium term choices there are going to 
have to be in public spending."

Regarding the spending measures announced by the Chancellor, Dr Cable 
said although he approved of "a few small things" such as the help 
for pensioners with savings, he disagreed with many others.

"The scrappage scheme for cars, for example - why should people be 
given a £2000 bounty for buying what will almost certainly be an 
imported car? This isn't well directed funding. We've had an enormous 
cut in VAT."

Public spending, he said, should be "focused on things that leave us 
with an asset - social housing, public transport - not scattered."

Regarding the 50% tax rate on top earners, Dr Cable said it had been 
done in a "tokenistic" way and left a loophole for such earners:

"You're inviting people to turn their income into stock. A legion of 
tax accountants are now going to be employed exploiting this 
loophole. You've got to tax in a comprehensive way, not use token fig 
leaves. They certainly haven't done anything to lift taxation on 
people at the bottom and that's where focus should have been."

He went on to say that the Liberal Democrats believed in "discipline 
in public spending", and said they'd been trailing issues such as 
"public sector pensions- which aren't affordable" and the extent of 
defence spending.

Dr Cable was pessimistic about future prospects, saying that "we are 
in a bad place. The problem is - and the Government is reluctant to 
accept this - that Britain is in a very exposed position."

Politically, he concluded, the Budget was effectively "throwing in 
the sponge, admitting that there's nothing much they can do about 
these problems, and passing them on."  [Tomorrow George Osborne will 
respond with this ghastly inheritance in the forefront of his mind -cs]

15.10, BBC News

Later, Dr Cable said that the Government's growth forecast was "just 
an utter and complete fantasy" and its public spending schemes open 
to abuse.

"The assumption for growth next year is about twice what the 
independent forecasters are assuming. They've tried to work out this 
enormous deficit running forward, and how to reduce it, and they've 
just assumed a growth rate that'll get it back to normal." [Putting 
it more bluntly, they've worked out how much growth is needed to put 
it all right and blithely made that figure their forecast! What a lot 
of shysters! -cs]

He said the government's scrappage scheme was "open to enormous 
abuse" and said there were more direct ways of dealing with the 
recession, repeating the necessity for "focused public investment in 
things that we know about, like social housing, which leave you with 
an asset at the end."

Asked if he thought we were at the "bottom" of the recession, Dr 
Cable said "I don't think we're at the bottom of this at all. There's 
a big elephant in the room which is the banking system. Half our 
banks are collapsed and nationalised, they're not lending to 
businesses. The government has to address this."
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Lambert: Chancellor is taking big risks with the public finances
14:49 | 22/04/2009

Richard Lambert, CBI Director General
BBC News

Mr Lambert said the Chancellor is "taking big risks with the public 
finances", and doubted that the Budget's credibility to restore them 
to stability.

"We think he's taking big risks with the public finances.

"The big question was would it restore a credible way to restore 
public finances to stability.

"The short term stuff.we would support that. There are some measures 
there to help industry."
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Lamont: The worst could be yet to come
13:45 | 22/04/2009

Norman Lamont, Former Chancellor of the Exchequer
BBC Radio 4 Budget Special

Mr Lamont said that if any of the Chancellor's figures were "even 
slightly wrong, we could be in a really disastrous situation", and 
that the worst borrowing figures could be yet to come.

"It's possible that growth might begin at the end of the year," he 
said. "But what David Cameron was alluding to was- when will we get 
to the rate of growth we had in the past. It's likely that 
unemployment will rise this year, next year and the year after."

He went on to say that the "really shocking thing about this Budget 
was the borrowing figures - if any of these figures are even slightly 
wrong, we could be in a really disastrous situation. Experience and 
history show that the worst borrowing usually comes after recession 
are over. These figures could get even worse."

Mr Lamont continued that he didn't see the Budget convincing "as a 
path to stability", and that the forecast of getting back to 3.5% 
growth "could easily not happen. Of course there's a world recssion, 
but where did it start? With the co-authors, America and Britain. 
Asia had no banking crisis, we've spread it to them."

Asked about the increase in the top rate of tax, Mr Lamont questioned 
whether it would "actually bring in significant revenue - a lot of 
specialist have indicated that they don't think it'll bring in 
anything like what the Chancellor expects and could have a big impact 
on areas like the City."
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Derek Simpson: Government's brave in taking on record borrowing
14:45 | 22/04/2009

Derek Simpson, Leader of Unite
BBC News

Mr Simpson said that given the criticism of today's Budget, he wanted 
to hear what the alternative was, and praised the Government for 
being "brave" on taking on such a large amount of borrowing.

"I've heard the Conservatives shouting about cuts, and now I'm 
hearing the analysts saying they are making some cuts, " he said.

"I think ordinary people will want to know how it effects them and 
their jobs. People are worried about losing homes and they're also 
worried about getting homes - affordable housing. I noticed there was 
something about house building, but it could go even further."

He went on to praise the Government's borrowing strategy, saying that 
"if we stand back from this problem, which is a global problem, I can 
see our manufacturing industry disappearing altogether - and then 
what would we have left afterwards? I'm in favour of the Government 
being brave enough to take on record amounts of borrowing. I may take 
issue with how it's applied though."

Regarding the fuel duty increase, Mr Simpson said that given the 
scrappage scheme and manufacturers' current discounts, "motorists 
might do quite well, though obviously any increase in cost is bad.

We've heard all the criticisms," Mr Simpson concluded. "I've yet to 
hear someone say anything about what would be better than this."