Although I have not seen the detail yet, the headline items seem sound and logical. I have long been annoyed at the distortion in the property market by buy-to-let landlords get tax relief. He has gone some way to addressing that, which shows some guts, although not far enough in my view. Other policies all seem rational - living wage (although will it be), although as I see it he's done nowt about the grossly distortive effects of the employers NI lockstep.

£6 in the left hand, £6 in the right hand.
Switch them around and we have the budget.
The concern is what may be "lost " during the switch and who benefits overall.

+ attempts to restrain the Buy To Let market, which is in London is contributing to ridiculous property prices
- attempts to restrain the Buy To Let market, which in other parts of the country is needed to encourage investment in dilapidated housing stock.
+ More devolution for the Republic of Mancunia. Hopefully paving the way for Leeds, Newcastle, Birmingham and dare I say it, Liverpool.
- Scrapping Uni grants and replacing them with loans - pulling the drawbridge up on the poorest.
+ The fact that I got out of contracting before Gideon tumbled the dividend tax game


- Further inheritance tax relief. Mainly of use to the already wealthy.

... and finally ...

- Labourites complaining about the Tories taking their policies and implementing them. What's more important, your personal power or your policies? Long may Labour stay out of power.

To think - the Chancellor's budget once heralded the creation of entire motorway networks, or naval fleets or nuclear power generation.

These days we'd struggle to afford a set of those cheap fake trees which adorn a Hornby train station.

Yet will continue to further distort the housing market by extending Right to Buy to Housing Association properties - houses that are owned by private, not-for-profit or charitable organisations.

He has usurped the term "Living Wage". The proposal to increase National Minimum Wage to £9.00 ph by the end of this parliament will still leave his "livfing wage" less than the current Living Wage in Scotland and London

Changing the term minimum wage to living wage was cynical but basically the Budget exposed the paucity of Labour's ideas and their incompetence _ Osborne incorporated their 'big' ideas (ie daft little ideas) do it's hard for them or their supporters to criticise. Furthermore, his cuts were less severe than he announced pre-election, a ticket on which his party gained election. So, for Labour supporter it must be the Tory budget of their dreams.

Some good stuff - the idea that businesses should be paying the wages of its employees rather than part of it is a good one. Restricting child allowance to two children is also a good policy. The stuff on non doms is good as is closing the dividend loop hole.

Surprised he didnt introduce a flat rate on pension contribution tax relief cant be long.

As a lefty, I was pleasantly surprised by the budget. Hard to disagree with much of what he's done, bit of smoke and mirrors with the whole "living wage" thing but all in all, not bad.

What kind of "lefty" are you?

Not sure where you get the idea that companies will pay their staff adequately from? A living wage = suitable hourly rate x hours. While the employers NI lockstep remains supermarkets and the like are artificially "incentivised" to offer part-time roles. Longer Sunday trading hours is presumably HMG's big idea to increase employment at a living wage (sic) by creating even more part-time roles,

As was written in The Times this morning - not sure the headline grabber of inheritance tax been abolished on houses worth up to £1 million is so good. As they said, was it really in anyone's top 100 needs / wishes for the UK to allow already relatively privileged middle class middle-aged people / kids inherit more tax free? How does it square with HMG's hard-working philosophy to give people hundreds of thousands of pounds they didn't have to work for? A cynical vote grabber with no logic whatsoever.

Around 13 million of the least well off will lose out under this budget according to the IFS. And some of the changes to Tax Credits and Universal Benefit will actually be a [idisincentive[/i to go out and work.

Changes to VED heralding the return of the gas guzzler.

An overall INCREASE in the tax burden, all done by 'stealth taxes' that the Tories used to bitch and moan about Labour using.

Yeah. Great budget. Not.