Thursday, 13 March 2008

How The Budget Will Affect You: A Nev Filter Special

The Nev Filter's in-depth look at Alistair Darling’s budget.

- An extended family of seven chain-smoking Lithuanian alcoholics with a combined income of £20,000 and a 999-year fixed-rate mortgage, driving a Jag: £20,000 worse off

- A disabled single mother with a part-time job earning £20 a week, living in a cardboard box and looking to buy an articulated lorry: £950 worse off

- A lance-corporal serving in Afghanistan, driving an eco-Challenger tank, with a WAG at home spending his income on bling: £20 worse off

- A single centenarian with a state pension, living in a Band D underground bunker, running a Harley on biofuel: 99p worse off

- A non-domiciled chairman of a major high-street chain with a wife, two mistresses three children and a helicopter, living in rented council accommodation with a well-stocked wine cellar: £30m better off

The Chancellor has hit back at critics who say he delivered a bad news budget, saying: “It doesn’t really matter what I do. We’re all at the mercy of greedy corporations and stupid banks. We’re screwed.”

After being hit around the head several times by Gordon Brown, however, he issued a clarification, explaining that although the world faced a terrible recession, Britain was in some inexplicable way uniquely placed to prosper through, with record quantities of jam at some indeterminate point in the future.

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