This week, Gordon Brown detailed what will almost certainly be his final budget. Yet again, it was a masterpiece of presentation over substance, headline over fine print and spin over delivery. As is always the case with Gordon Brown's budgets, when the 'tax cut' headline is yesterday's chip wrapper, the detailed analysis highlights the bitter truth.
The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) analysis undermines Brown's so called tax cutting budget. In fact, the budget has raised tax by £2 billion. Gordon Brown has broken his own manifesto pledge to "continue to raise the share of national income devoted to education". And thanks to Gordon Brown, 3.5 million families will pay more tax as a result of the budget. 2007 will see the tax burden hit its highest level - ever.
For families, the changes mean that working families will see a gain of £300 million in tax, affecting 3.5 million middle earning families. A single person on £15,000 will see an increase of £70 in tax, whilst a family with one child earning £25,500 between them will see their tax bill rise by £230 with no help in the highly complex tax credits system.
For education spending the growth is set to fall from 5.3% a year to just 2.4% over the next spending review, below the trend growth of the economy. And Gordon Brown's aspiration that state school spending will match that of a private pupil will now not happen until 2021 according to the IFS.
For businesses, overall taxes have been raised by £1 billion with small businesses being hit the hardest. Higher corporation tax rates and increased complexity in reliefs and allowances will be spotted immediately by hard hit businesses.
The budget was billed as an exercise in simplicity. But with more families forced into the tax credits system - a system that is well known to be overly complex and fundamentally flawed - the complexity of dealing with Gordon Brown's system will become more burdensome for individuals. Small businesses will have to deal with seven changes to their corporation tax and increased complexity in VAT and reliefs.
Commenting on the budget, Mark Garnier said:
"There is one good thing about this budget and that is the fact that Gordon Brown is now planning to increase spending by 2% this year against an economy growing at 2.5%. In doing so he has wholeheartedly endorsed David Cameron's aims to share the proceeds of growth between increased public spending and a reduced tax burden.
"But that is where the good news ends. Gordon Brown is obsessed with making things unduly complex. The real winners of this budget are the accountants who have to wade through pages and pages of guidance in order to deal with the tax affairs of their clients. That is the huge hidden cost of Gordon Brown - the cost of complying with his fiscal whims.
"Tony Blair and Gordon Brown make much of the stability of the economy and it is fair to say that the headline numbers have shown that Gordon Brown has indeed managed to keep up the stable foundation set by Conservative Chancellor Ken Clarke's four years of stable economic growth. But when you scratch the surface, you see the one million manufacturing jobs that Gordon Brown has lost; you see the appalling boom and bust economy of the NHS; and you see public sector borrowing going up and up.
"Gordon Brown will be Prime Minster. Does anyone think his meddling and obsession with complexity will be good for this country?"