New Labour have - Old Labour would have been more in tune with its core vote - NOTE THE DIFFERENCE FOLKS !!!

Ian Payne, WALSALL,

Dear Alix of London,

So what?

eddie, mirthios, crete, greece

I don´t think that Alistair or Gordon realise what they have done to the no-kids, low earners of this country. There are no benefits available to people under retirement age, who are childless and earn less than 15,500 a year. Yet, as a result of this budget, they alone will end up paying more income tax than they did before it. I sincerely hope that history remembers Gordon Brown as the Labour Chancellor who robbed the poor to buy the votes of the rich.

David, Valencia, Spain

...not finished yet!

Cameron's pathetic prostitution of his family life before his children are old enough to make a decision about their public role does not disguise the fact that the Tories have NO alternative policy. George Osbourne was in the Telegraph yesterday admitting that they "cannot promise" a tax cut. Of course they can't! To promise a tax cut to low earners, they'd have to tax their core voters, the rich, more heavily.

The only party currently offering a costed tax cut for low earners is the Lib Dems. Sorry, but true.

It IS possible to offer tax cuts. You just have to be (a) not obsessed with expensive statist control of every aspect of life and (b) not in bed with big business and the super-wealthy.

That's both the Tories and Labour out on both counts.

Alix, London,

I cannot believe that a LABOUR government has got away with this. It makes me furious that no-one called them on it at the time. They have actually got rid of the starting rate band of tax and made the LOWEST earners worse off!

I did work it out when last year's budget came out, and found the dividing line was something like £17k. If you earn less than that, you're worse off come 5 April! You can, of course, pick your way through the tax credits and benefits maze if you've got the stomach for it, and resign yourself to spending more time working out how much benefit you'll lose by doing extra work than you actually spend on getting extra work. Assuming you're eligible for tax credits of course.

Labour have decided to take money away from the poorest people, and give (some of) it back to (some of) them after they've messed it around a bit and siphoned some off for illegal wars.

How is this allowed to happen?

Alix, London,

No MP with salary and expenses approaching £200,000 a year lives in the same world as most famlies. One reason why voters are leaving in droves and taking their earning skills with them.

Marshall, Moraira, Spain

I feel the goverment are driving the country in to resession. There tax's aren't affecting the higher paid they are affecting those of us who are already living on a tight budget. I am a single parent with two children. I work extremely long hours and sometime 7 days a week to make ends met.
Great tax us more!!!
When I then can't afford to get to work as the transport costs have gone up and the cheap cars I can afford (which you would scrap) I can't afford to run or put road tax on you will end up having to house myself and my children at a much higher cost. Even my maths adds that up to a bad idea!
I think it is long passed time for a change and the nation to stand up and say enough!!!

Diane Fairless, Farnborough, Hampshire

I did write this before, about Alistair Darling, I think Alistair is
more Conservative then George Osborn, so how do you think
we the general-community will be rich, the idea of new labour is to make our community in Britain them&us ?
Although, i wouldn't think i am rich, but i am normal thank's
Ken

Cllr Ken Tiwari (Independendent), Oxford, United Kingdom

This is not a Darling budget, it is a Brown budget, and that man was seduced by power long ago as he sat stewing in his malice at number 11. The country feels let down as they both kneel down in front of the uber rich. After this I don't know how they can even look at themselves in the mirror. I will never vote for Labour again.

Darre L , Kings Lynn, Norfolk

How many more poor people have to be taxed to the limit to make all of these millionaires the Chancellor wants?

David Leslie, Perth, Scotland

For the first time in my life I will probably be voting for the Tories - I am very disappointed in New Labour. I am worse off now thanks to Gordon Brown's government.

Pepper, Brighton, UK

All these measures to help teenage mothers etc are really becoming more than a joke. Employers should be paying a salary/wage that covers all the expenses parents face. As it is the taxpayer makes up the shortfall and, because it is a vote winner, the political parties are trying to outdo each other in the amounts they spend on this category of the population. Does anyone check to make sure that it is indeed the children who benefit? A question: do single people exist in the UK - apart from their function as milch cows?

Alice J McCabe, Doncaster, UK

"He added it was important that voters did not think that politicians were a breed apart. "

Ha! ha! ha! ha!

Did he have a straight face when he said this?

R Bingham, Lauzun, France