Date published: 2006/03/22
The BBC says:
A large increase in funding for schools was the centre-piece of Chancellor Gordon Brown's 10th Budget.
Mr Brown said his long-term aim was for state school pupils to get the same quality of education as private pupils.
Other measures saw road tax on "gas guzzling" cars but no repeat of last year's pensioners council tax rebate.
Tory David Cameron said Mr Brown taxed and borrowed too much and was "the past". Lib Dem Sir Menzies Campbell said it was a missed opportunity.
Mr Cameron said Mr Brown was an "old fashioned tax and spend chancellor" who had given the UK the "biggest tax burden in history".
Unfortunately the annual budget speech has become more and more of a pantomime, in keeping with the New Labour Style of putting spin above substance. So Gordon Brown gives loads of silly soundbites, and the opposition has to do the same in return because it is only long after the speech is finished that anyone actually finds out what the budget really contains. Brown will probably be remembered most for sinking the country under a large debt to be paid off by future generations, in particular through his crackpot adherence to PFI. He also has not at all addressed the issue of pensions in any sensible way. All in all the country ought to be much better off when we get rid of this dreadful government. Only whoever replaces these clowns will almost certainly be worse.
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