Budget Day: Our panel members give their verdict

This morning we posted the Budget hopes of ConservativeHome's expert panel of political figures and commentators in their respective areas of interest or expertise. Did Alistair Darling deliver what they hoped for? Their responses will be posted during the course of the afternoon.

5pm

Jill Kirby, Director of the Centre for Policy Studies, on The Family

This Budget was an insult to our intelligence - who would believe the Chancellor's growth forecasts? But it was also an insult to families.

Darling refused point blank to accept the failure of the tax credit scheme, claiming it was helping families through the recession. So, you might be living through the worst downturn in peacetime, but if your hours are cut as a result then (provided you can face entangling yourself with all the bureaucracy and form-filling whenever your circumstances change) you might get a bit more working tax credit.

And the Chancellor's answer to child poverty? Child tax credit will go up by (wait for it) nearly 40 pence a week from 2010. Wow. Using that old Brown trick, Darling announced that the credit would "increase by £20"- failing to add that he meant £20 A YEAR - so the casual listener might think he meant £20 a week. A cheap trick.

Conservative Home's expert panel previews the Budget

In advance of today's Budget, ConservativeHome assembled an expert panel of political figures and commentators to outline what they hope to see from today's Budget in their area of interest or expertise. Their thoughts are below and once Alistair Darling has delivered the Budget, we will post their reactions here on Platform later this afternoon.

Andrew Lilico, Managing Director of Europe Economics, on Growth

The Budget should be realistic about the growth situation - planning against a recession at least as bad as the early 1980s and a material fall in the sustainable growth rate of the economy (to perhaps just 2-2.25%), cutting our spending cloth accordingly.  The Government should admit that on a recession that bad its previous plans would take spending above 50% of GDP, and that this is unacceptable. 

To keep down the growth of spending as a proportion of GDP, it should immediately announce a £50bn reduction in growth in spending between 2008-9 to 2010-11 (e.g., by freezing the cash budget of most departments), with a commitment to seek further reductions of up to £50bn, if necessary, for later years.

In addition, the annual inflation targeting regime should be replaced with a target of average inflation at 3% annually between now and 2015 - with the inflation measure changed to include housing costs.

Nick Bourne AM: Barack will prevail

Simon Burns MP has used these pages to make the case for Hillary Clinton.  Iain Duncan Smith will shortly be arguing that John McCain should be America's 44th President.  Today, Nick Bourne, AM for Mid & West Wales and Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly for Wales, states his belief that a President Barak Obama will be good for Britain and the world.

Nick blogs here.

Barack Obama has locked up a majority of the pledged delegates after the primaries in Kentucky and Oregon.  In fact I believe that the contest for the Democratic nomination has become almost a sideshow as it is clear the battle for the Presidency will be between Barack Obama and John McCain.

That isn’t to say that Obama will clinch the nomination immediately but he has both more delegates and more super delegates than Hilary Clinton.

This week, on Monday, five more super delegates pledged themselves to Barak Obama whilst none pledged themselves to Hilary Clinton. The most prominent new recruit to the Obama standard is Senator Robert C Byrd of West Virginia.  Byrd stated that “Obama was a shining young statesman who possesses the personal temperament and courage necessary to extricate our country from this costly misadventure in Iraq.”

The journey from Junior Senator for Illinois to putative Presidential nominee for the Democratic Party has been an impressive one.  Although he will have spent only four years in Washington by Election Day in 2008, his rise to prominence in American politics has been astronomic.