Downing Street Says

Before beginning the press briefing, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) took the opportunity to wish journalists a happy St Patrick’s Day. He said that the Chancellor had told Cabinet colleagues this morning that his Budget would seek to lock in an enduring economic stability for Britain, and set out the long-term choices and reforms the Government now intended to make to increase investment in the nation’s economic future and in our front-line services, to secure prosperity and security for all, and to ensure Britain was well-placed to prosper in the era of global competition. Asked if, given his background, he would agree that the fact that Budget day coincided with St Patrick’s Day and was taking place in the middle of the Cheltenham Festival meant that it was a Budget for Irishmen, the PMOS said he thought he would leave it to the Chancellor to decide whether to read any significance into those clearly astounding coincidences.

2 Comments »

I don’t think it was a budget for Irishmen – or Scotsmen, Welshmen or Englishmen for that matter – unless they happen to be 70 year-olds and qualify for the one-off hundred quid payment!
Comment by Patrick Haseldine — 17 Mar 2004 on 3:36 pm | Link
The oligarchy in the Houses of Parliament was particularly salient in the last few weeks, as the two publicly-subsidised national Opposition parties vied with each other to see how many civil service staff they could fire and how many government operations they could privatise to spend more on security, health and education.
Cleary, they knew what was coming in the Budget, which is supposed to be a tightly kept secret, but in this spin-gov, secrecy is negotiable.
On the day, Mr Brown outdid the pair of them. Using some very vague arithmetic, he pulled \xA320 billion out of a hat and said he would be spending that much more per year on front-line services. It would involve spending several billion on computers (American) and their (American) consultancies, but at the end of it a whole lot of people could be "wasted", in the ugly corporate terminology.
In view of the remarkable concordance of the three parties’ views on how to deal with the national budget, it comes as no surprise to learn that Mr Bliar has applied to the Electoral Commission to extend the public subsidy to the governing party as well. That way, all sitting candidates will be subsidised to beat YOU in the next General Election.
Comment by eelpie — 18 Mar 2004 on 10:21 pm | Link

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» Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Budget

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