Poll results: Rate Darling's budget

A - Magnificent 0 votes
B - Mighty fine 0
C - Middling 0
D - Meagre 0
E - Moribund 3
F - Murphy 15

So 15 out of 18 voters thought the budget was terrific...only kidding! I think we can safely assume that visitors to Brigadoon were unimpressed with Darling's (mis-)calculations. I just wish I'd added Mendacious as a category...

Moronic efficiency

Wahey! It's budget time and Alastair Darling, perpetuating the all-too-cosy arrangements with the media that everyone has been railing against for the last week, has got his message out nice and early. £15 billion of "efficiency savings" are to be made in order that we're not all eating beans on toast for the next 50 years.

Can such savings be made? Well, having seen first-hand various branches of the public sector in (in)action, those savings are absolutely possible. Which only begs the question...

Why has it taken New Labour 12 years to start the process of eliminating this waste?

It reminds me of those products that advertise themselves as "new and improved", tacitly admitting the previous version was "old and inferior". Maybe that can be Gordon's slogan for the next election: New and Improved Labour, now whitewashes smears more efficiently.