The 2007 Fudget

The problem for me with is budget this the numbers. See the numbers can add up all they want but we can't have that much confidence that the numbers will actually pan out as presented.

The 0.9 deficit is completely dependent on spending actually being controlled at an 8% rise for current expenditure and tax revenue growing according to the prediction, and all that with BenchMarking 2 coming down the pike (as the yanks would say) along with a housing slump sitting in the sidecar.

24,000 new jobs is a massive drop from the existing figure, Cowen said 72,000 was the previous number I think. It's not about applying the brakes instead the hydraulics are seizing and the vehicle of the national economy is starting to drift across the road into oncoming traffic.

It sounds like a reasonable budget in many ways but there is the problem, who really believes that with benchmarking 2 coming that spending increases of 8% will be achievable without cutting existing services?

My friend - Bertie.

Myself and a housemate used to drink in the Goose quite a bit and from time to time we'd encounter Bertie in there. Once I was even in the jacks just after he had gone in. Little did I know that this level of interaction makes me his friend, perhaps even a close friend. I'm a terrible person despite the closeness of our relationship, I haven't ever sent him a Christmas card and I completely snubbed his daughter's wedding. And not once did I offer to lend him money.

I'm a bad, bad person.