Since the Budget, I have spent a lot of time ploughing through the red book (I've done other things too, which I'll blog about later!). For anyone fortunate enough not to be fluent in political-geekery, the Red Book is the White Paper the Government publishes alongside the Budget. The Red Book is about 200 pages long - with another 15 or so appendices on top of that, so I have had my work cut out.

Actually, reading it is the easy bit - the difficulty is in translating the numbers and economist-speak in to something that means anything to ordinary, non-politically obsessed, people. You can get your own copy here. I'll try and digest it over the next few days.

The Tories and Lib Dems, true to form, quickly dismissed what was actually a string of good news items, certainly compared to where we could have been: Less borrowing, fewer job losses, fewer repossessions and employment (slowly) on the rise. Given that capitalism very nearly fell off the edge of a cliff 36 months ago, this is news to be welcomed. It is also not at all surprising that Labour are more trusted than the Tories to fix the economy.

This budget - quite rightly - was never going to be a giveaway or slashing budget. Fickle people who called it "boring" (mostly in the Daily Mail) have clearly not weighed up the alternatives. There was a clearly social-demoratic strand throughout the entire the entire budget: 

- The removal of tax allowances for those earning over £100,000.
- Freezing of inheritance tax.
- The clampdown on tax avoidance forecast to raise £500 Million
- Winter fuel allowance for pensioners extended for a further year.
- £2bn invested in The Green Investment Bank
- £4 weekly rise in child tax credit for parents with young children from 2012
- Increasing stamp duty to 5% for £1 Million properties.

The Tories are fond of saying that when it comes to the Budget, the Devil is in the detail. Well, they have Labour's details in the Red Book. So can we have their details now?