SO that was the Budget. George Osborne, who looks more like a refugee from a low-rent Transylvanian castle with every passing day, promised that it wasn’t going to be a giveaway Budget as he stood outside Number 11 next to Danny Alexander, who looked like a man facing imminent execution, which he is.



Danny knows that whatever goodies George has in his red box, there’s nothing there that’s going to save Danny’s career or reputation.

Georgie was holding his red briefcase at arm’s length like it contained the liver of a benefits claimant that he was going to have for lunch with a nice chianti. There would be no bribes, no prezzies, no gimmicks, he said, except of course if you’re a right wing elderly Thatcherite who likes a swallie or three ... so exactly the same voters that Jim Murphy is targeting, then.

The collapse in oil prices means inflation is lower than expected, which in turn means interest payments on the eyewatering national debt are less than predicted and also the Treasury doesn’t have to set aside so much to cover inflation-related rises in benefits payments.

Bad news for poor folk and bad news for Scotland’s oil industry, but at least the constant reminders from Unionists that Scotland is too poor have given the orifice into which Danny Alexander has inserted himself an extra £6 billion to play with in bribes which he can give away to potential Murphoid voters, most of whom live in the richest parts of the country.

Sorry, not bribes ... incentives for hard-working families and people who inherit loads of money from mummy and daddy. So that terribly clever and wise Gordie Broon was right then, this is UK redistribution and pooling resources in action. You pool, and people better off than you get a share.

Anyway, George was feeling very pleased with himself because he’s worked terribly hard to reduce the national debt and now has got it down to a mere £1.5 trillion, most of which goes to pay bankers’ bonuses and pay-rises for company directors.

HE’S also going to implement some policy-wonkishness to reform inheritance tax, which is code for giving tax breaks to people who are already rich enough that they really don’t need any tax breaks. Oh and he promised another £45 billion in cuts still to come, but the people who benefit from the inheritance-tax changes are unlikely to notice, or indeed care. Who worries about austerity when you’ve got a nice pile to look forward to from the bank of mum and dad. Or even the bank of distant auntie that you’re barely on speaking terms with.

There was a wee sop for drinkers and motorists. Beer duty got cut by a penny, so if you drink a couple of hundred pints you’ll get a free one which will enamour you so much with George’s Budget that you’ll vote Tory. Or at least that’s the theory. In practice you’ll be so plastered that you’d be unable to tell the difference between George Osborne and a big steaming pile of rancid pork, although to be fair that’s a tough call at the best of times.

Motorists also got a promise that petrol duty won’t be raised this year, pleasing the Jeremy Clarksons of this world no end. There was bugger-all for you in this Budget if you rely on public transport, but then George is of the school that holds that if you need to take a bus instead of a chauffeured limo then you’re probably a benefits claimant and your JSA should be sanctioned.

WEE Danny Alexander’s big hope for saving his skin came with an announcement for a plan for a new offence of “corporate failure to prevent economic crime”.

It’s far too little too late, and Danny knows that if the measure was ever seriously introduced it would see the entire Coalition cabinet and their Labour predecessors in the jail, because collectively and corporately they embarked on a policy of allowing the banks and the financial companies to do pretty much what they liked, leading to financial armageddon and constant newspaper headlines telling us it’s all the fault of poor people, benefits claimants, Scots, and whoever it is that the Daily Mail has it in for this week.

In a bizarre historical exegesis, George also went on a bit about the Battle of Agincourt. That’s modern Conservatism for you, but Ukip voters in Essex like that sort of thing, even though most of them think that Agincourt is a nightclub in Magaluf. George is going to spend a million quid to celebrate the English beating the French and their Scottish allies way back in 1415 ... not that he’s bitter or anything.

Actually there is no historic record of Scotland aiding the French at the battle of Agincourt, as we were in the huff with them at the time due to the refusal of the French to recognise bridies as a foodstuff. But it allowed George to have his little gloat, and that’s all that matters.

It’s a gloat that can easily be paid for by sanctioning the JobSeekers Allowance of about 3000 claimants. Pooling and sharing, thanks Gordie.

And you were fed up because they keep harping on about bleedin’ 1966? In the year 2566 a rump UK government – if Westminster hasn’t sunk beneath the waves by then due to rising sea levels – will be spending 100 quintillion quid (inflation adjusted) to celebrate Bobby Moore and remind everyone that Scotland has a rubbish football team.

The Tory Chancellor of the day will pay for it by sponsored kitten-drownings and pulling the wings off flies. At least Scotland will be independent by then so we won’t be paying for it.

The most significant announcement was the unveiling of a new design for the pound coin because the old one is always being faked. Which by a fitting coincidence is exactly like compassionate Conservatism. Mind you, asking George to fake compassion is a bit like expecting Vlad the Impaler to do an impression of a cosmetic surgeon, and in Scotland at least, the Tories will still be skewered.