Oliver Hartwich

The Chancellor may have claimed that Britain was better prepared than any other nation to deal with a cooling world economy, but looking behind the headline-grabbing initiatives on ‘sin taxes’ it is clear that his figures do not justify such smugness. Britain now faces a 2.9 per cent budget deficit while even Germany is recording a budget surplus. What planet is Mr Darling on?

Dr Oliver Hartwich - Chief Economist at Policy Exchange - provides CoffeeHousers with some background on Budget 2008 here.

Thinking about Parliament, it is easy to miss the wood for the trees. While it is often associated with party political exchanges and topical debates on issues of the day, its core function could be reduced to just one thing: the determination of how government is funded and how the money it raises should be spent. All other policies, whether on policing, education or health, follow from the decisions made in the Budget. Without a budget there could be no army, no hospitals and no schools. In fact, there would not even be a Parliament, let alone a Prime Minister. It is thus really hard to overestimate the role that the Budget plays in the nation’s political life. It is the single most important subject that Parliament regularly has to consider.