Budget 2009: What the papers said

Thursday, 23 April 2009 12:00 AM

Papers have reacted angrily to what some are calling a 'return to Old Labour'.

By politics.co.uk staff

The chancellor yesterday had to deliver a Budget in the worst economic circumstances since the second world war. With few surprises - the largest being the 50 per cent top rate of income tax - the papers have reacted negatively to what they see as a tame, workmanlike Budget.

The Independent described it as disappointing but not unexpected. It felt the Budget was a largely political exercise and warned that Alistair Darling will have to go further with central government reform or risk handing the initiative to the Conservatives.

The Times bemoaned Mr Darling's failure to outline a route to clearing the massive public debt, having laid out enormous levels of borrowing. In a common theme, it highlighted the chancellor's failure to provide much-needed public service reform and sounded the death of New Labour saying: "Labour is once again the party of massive public debt, inadequately controlled public spending and taxes on the wealthy".

There was praise in The Guardian for Mr Darling's honesty in laying out the full "horror" of the economic situation. But once again questions were raised over how the recovery would be paid for and it warned it would be "anyone who uses schools, hospitals and other public services" who foots the bill.

The Financial Times was critical of the overly optimistic levels of recovery and future growth laid out by the chancellor. After a Budget it described as "a mixture of populism and procrastination" it said there is now a clear division between the political parties on how to solve the public finance problem and called for a truthful debate on what that should entail.

The government was accused of "cheap partisan politics" by The Daily Telegraph which levelled a scathing attack on the chancellor's refusal to accept responsibility for the economic crisis. Again it criticised the lack of a feasible plan for recovery and the political nature of the Budget by highlighting that "practical considerations have been eclipsed by sheer political opportunism".

While yesterday's Budget was always going to be a difficult one in such dark economic times, the consensus among the papers was that Mr Darling failed to provide any real roadmap to recovery in what was seen as a largely political effort to soften the blow of bad news.

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