I think our esteemed Chancellor resisted the temptation to bribe the electorate with conspicuous give-aways ahead of the momentous Election in May where clearly the outcome (according to the Polls) is still uncertain. Anyone else with a weaker will would have used part of the largesse earned from low inflation to court popularism.
The reduction in the Pension Allowance is clearly politically judicious aimed at stealing the thunder of the Labour Party by reducing the lifetime allowance from £1.25million to £1million daring Mr Balls to go further and alienate the middle class to an even greater extent than he has already with his disastrous Mansion Tax proposals.
The Help-to-Buy Isa is an excellent idea and will generate a good deal of money from the public and that is no bad thing.
I can see that he is still concerned about the sluggishness of planning decisions (in relation to new developments) and is therefore transferring more powers to the London Mayoral Department which, hopefully, will help to circumnavigate the strangle hold that localism and nimbyism is having on private and public sector housing.
It is interesting to note though that since the Autumn Statement £1billion has been lost in Stamp Duty Revenue due to the slow down in the property market at the middle to higher ends and the negative affect of draconian Stamp Duties Rates that apply to this sector.
I always thought that this was ‘follies grandeur’ by increasing the Stamp Duty for properties over £1.5million to 12% in order to so call fund the give-aways at the lower end of the property market when the slab sided structure of this tax computation was abandoned.
Apparently the Lib Dems insisted upon this and this could cost the Treasury aggregate circa £2billion.
Taken all together this was an appropriate Budget that was designed to persuade the electorate that above everything else the health of the economy is the most important driving force and nothing should be done to put this at risk by allowing the Labour Party (and their cohorts) to exert their form of socialism that, lets face it, almost ruined the country last time around.