It was definitely a Brownite Budget, reminiscent of those 1998 days when everyone was a Blairite, a Brownite or a Mandelsonite (remember him?).  It was good for the Labour Party, and for Gordon Brown’s perception as successor to Tony Blair, perhaps sooner rather than later.  The Party faithful (particularly the Scots and the Welsh, whose votes  will still be vital to Labour, in 2005) will have been comforted, even enthused.  Party membership will now begin to creep up again.   

It was a Brownite Budget, in that big business was pushed away a little from the embrace (they’re really Tony’s friends, not Gordon’s), small business supported (the virtuous self-employed given a warm Scottish cuddle) and public services enthroned as a Government investment priority.  And for the iconic National Health Service, coupled with The Bevan Solution, a massive vote of confidence – the NHS now has its very own spell in intensive care, no expense spared.  For my part, I want to see the money used to effect a fundamental shift, bringing in the nursing profession as an equal partner with the medical profession, in securing the good health of the nation [ see my Demedicalisation of Britain last week ] .  But however it is achieved, the political challenge is now defined.  Brown has endorsed Blair’s chosen electoral strategy, joining him on his chosen battle-ground.  They will stand or fall together.  

Just one note of caution.  It was also an old-fashioned, backward-looking Budget.  Gordon Brown is only tinkering with machinery that has already gone wrong.  And the Brownite approach remains flawed by its excessive dependence upon means-testing: means-tested benefits can never command long-term confidence, and are therefore flawed as a means of building confidence.  The Budget did nothing imaginative to relieve people’s fear of future unemployment or impoverishment, it did nothing for law & order or to relieve the fear of crime, nothing to relieve the pension anxieties of the young and middle-aged.  And these are the fears which are gnawing away inside my fellow citizens [ see my New Bevan Agenda ].  That’s what I think, anyway.  Labour still risks putting too many of its golden eggs into the medical basket…      

The Financial Times hit the button with its cartoons - both of these come from the Pink 'Un.  People take Budgets so seriously that it is difficult to find the right flavour for cartoons, even in the tabloids.  I happily and willingly acknowledge my sources, and hope that I will meet all legitimate royalty fees and charges by giving you this direct link to the Homepage of the most European newspaper of all, I give you the one-and-only Financial Times!

My advice to the Government is to close 1000 miles of track (about 40% of the network, as I understand it), retain only the InterCity and principal metropolitan commuting networks, abolish the two-class system, and double rail fares [ see my Plan for Rail ]  No society can afford the investment now needed to maintain a declining technology that was already out-of-date a century ago. 

Rocketing urban and suburban house-values prove decisively that city-dwellers are getting their rail-commuting on the cheap.  Invest in road transport, young Byers, in better buses and better roads, and win the eternal gratitude of a long-suffering driving, bus-riding public.  After a few squeals, everyone will also accept universal road-charging - you know it makes sense.  

Five times as many journeys are made by bus and coach as are made by rail.  Only 7% of all passenger journeys are made by rail.  Has your political nouse entirely deserted you?

What is happening, across Europe?  You will find my answer at Webnote 44/2

I find that after Budget time, these simple statements are very hard to find...