The Sun
You’ve got to love The Sun for finding a silver lining amongst all the Budget bad news. Its front page leads with "At least it’s sunny".
Flick back to p5 where its Budget coverage begins, and the lead story starts thus: Chancellor Alistair Darling hammered the nation with painful tax hikes yesterday to pay for the gaping black hole in Britain’s finances. To give the Sun its dues, it has discovered that the Budget measures will hit the bingo industry with an extra £5 million in new taxes.
George Pascoe-Watson’s political column flags the end of Labour’s term in government.
For those curious about what today's Page 3 Girl thinks: Keeley, 22, from Burnley fears that hard-working, low-earning Brits will be victims of yesterday's Budget. "Those battling to pay the bills will be hit further with tax hikes on small luxuries like the odd drink at the local."
The Times
The Times leads with the headline “Red all over", and the picture is of Darling with red eyebrows. It’s one of the better headlines of today’s coverage referring both to the extent of public borrowing and the return to old Labour policies of taxing the rich.
The focus is on those 350,000 people who earn more than £150,000 a year who will be paying a higher rate of tax, will see their personal allowances wiped out and their pensions tax relief reduced to 20%.
MPs “gasped”, it writes, as Darling revealed that Britain’s debt will amount to 79% of GDP in 2013/14 at £1.4 trillion. Even these dire figures were "based on a gamble". Growth predictions, it points out, “were dismissed as over-optimistic by the City and dishonest by the Conservatives”.
One of the leads dismissed the Budget as “a terrific Budget for Switzerland” (implying that highly paid bankers could just move there) and claims that Darling failed to explain how public finances could be restored.
Daily Mail
The Mail’s headline is “Alistair in wonderland” and says that Darling has "gambled Britain’s future on a 1970s-style tax raid against the rich and a wildly optimistic forecast of economic recovery".
The tabloid’s headlines make it personal, which is a trait of the Mail after all. It writes of "scorn at Darling’s optimism", how Cameron condemns "Labour’s living dead" and stoops to taking issue at personal appearances: the premier apparently, has a "goofy visage" and a “vast banana grin".
That about sums up the Mail’s considered political commentary.
Daily Mirror
There was some good news for Darling in the Mirror: "Robin Good" screamed the front page next to an image of Darling in Lincoln green with a bow and feathered cap. "Alistair Darling's Robin Hood Budget will help the poor – by taxing the rich," the front page story explains.
Lindsay Lohan, Frank Lampard's ex, Emma Watson, Bruce Grobbelaar and Simon Cowell all have stories about them (along with one on MP expenses) before the Budget coverage resumes on page 6.
The Mirror is true to its roots and looks for positives in the Budget. A "Just the Job" headline for the unemployment measures; "The Robin Hood chancellor aimed a few well-placed arrows at the rich"; "Saving the day" screams a two-page spread on pages 8 and 9.
Is there any criticism at all? Well, there's a bit of anger about the "booze and cig" prices, green groups "slam" the £1bn as not enough and on the front page it mentions "debt set to soar to £175bn" . But it's hard to escape how out of kilter this coverage is with everyone elses.
The Telegraph
Labour’s broken election promise of raising taxes for those earning more than £150,000 signals a return to class warfare, the front page lead says.
The loss of tax breaks on pension contributions also hits Britain’s high earners and the Telegraph reckons these tax grabs on high earners will bring in £5.5 billion for the government. Many of our high earners will pay up to 61% tax on their earnings, with concerns of a "brain drain" – the departure of our best paid and brightest workers to countries with more relaxed tax regimes – mentioned in the commentary.
In other coverage, The Telegraph says the Budget was "the last will and testament of a defeated man", sounding the death knell for Darling and indeed Labour at the next election.
The Guardian
The Guardian’s focus is on public spending on Darling’s “great squeeze”. Squeezing the rich for £7 billion along with a “brutal freeze on public spending” was Darling’s method of dealing with “the worst year for economic growth since 1945".
While Darling has brought forward public spending as part of a “£5 billion boost to the economy this year”, future plans for spending are “more severe” than under Margaret Thatcher with spending growth at just 0.7%.
With the level of national debt where it is, the Guardian points out, the government will be paying more than the entire schools budget just on interest repayments. It's a telling point that's made in other papers as well.
The Guardian goes on to outline how some of Darling’s measures will help young unemployed, pensioners, the car industry and help combat climate change. But the lead story on its Budget supplement delivers the final judgement on the Budget, stating that "this package delivers a poison pill to the next government".
The Independent
"That's rich!" (their exclamation mark and underlining) screams the front page of The Independent, following it up with "PM tears up New Labour script with 50p tax rate for highest earners".
Inside there's a piece on the "Seventies revival? From Healey to Darling – the life and death of New Labour" on pages two and three. The "battle lines" are now drawn for a general election, the paper's political editor states. Darling's speech is described as a "going for broke" Budget. Borrowing figures, the 50p tax rate and the pensions changes for the rich are also featured heavily.
Page four has a piece on the chancellor's growth predictions: "IMF punctures chancellor's optimism". Britain's recession will last deep into 2010 and Alistair Darling is hopelessly optimistic, IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard is reported as saying.
Economics editor Sean O'Grady has his say on page 5, in a piece headlined: "Our new world: borrowing billions before breakfast". "Shock" and "disbelief" are said to sum up the City's reaction to yesterday's Budget. Shock at the borrowing figures and disbelief at the predictions for recovery.
The Independent also has a 20-page Budget 2009 special. This has policy detail and a couple of features – including Jeremy Warner's Outlook: "A bogus Budget that ducks the inevitable pain of spending cuts".
Financial Times
The Financial Times calls the “austere” Budget a “gamble on growth” and devotes much of the front page to Labour’s “broken pledge” on taxing the wealthy.
It also devotes a lot of space to the Lib Dems and the Tories’ dismissal of Darling’s "absurdly optimistic growth figures".
It points out that economists have predicted that “levels of borrowing were so high that Britain would be at the mercy of government bond markets for the whole of the next parliament".
It devotes 28 pages to the Budget with the key focus on how the measures will affect businesses.
Daily Express
"They’ve ruined Britain" wails the Express. It writes of how Britain was "braced for a decade of merciless tax rises", of how pensions have been "plundered" to foot the bill for the "rampant borrowing of Labour that has ruined the country".
Cue the Express editorial staff moving to Marbella then. After a few paragraphs of this, it tells you to turn to pages two and three, as if we needed telling what to do with a newspaper. On the other hand, you could not turn to pages two and three, that would be ok too.
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