Various views

The BBC
The Guardian
The Telegraph
The Independent
Sky News

quick summary

growth forecast halved compared to forecast made last autumn
Personal tax allowance to £10K from 2014
Fuel duty increase cancelled
Alcohol duty escalator cancelled
Flat rate £144/week pension by 2014
Increased funding for tax enforcement (estimated to earn £3b/year extra revenue - money to be used in infrastructure spending)
1% cut in corporation tax
Pubic sector pay rises capped at 1%, armed services not subject to cap
prediction of deficit paid off by 2017

Aside from the various predictions (which have uniformly proved to be as accurate as a penniless gambler's bets during this administration) it seems a relatively neutral budget to me. I can't honestly see it making much of a change to most people's situations.

Without trying to read all the links on my phone....
Are they allowing child trust funds to be moved to child ISA's?

There were mentions of it being a possible measure before the budget but nobody seems to have said it was actually announced.

I expect that the growth forecasts will be downgraded next year and the year after that as well. The OBR have been wrong all along, being far too optimistic. Though considering the tight bounds he was within it is a non event, nothing really bad or good in the budget.

There was also some ploy to get people to buy new houses by offering a government backed loan to cover the deposit.

How evil of them, the damn swine!!

Well, depending on how you look at it, that could also be described as the government artificially maintaining the housing price bubble. Given they're loaning people money to pay the deposit and they've given the banks hundreds of billions to give out as credit including for mortgages, They could probably save everyone the trouble, cut out the middle men and just buy houses for people.

The housing market, particularly in the south east, needs to re-align. Propping up the price by helping people to pay deposits on mortgages they probably won't be able to afford long term stops that happening.

Jon

With a mortgage that is the same as our current rent we could easily afford to buy a three bedroom house but as we do not have that handy deposit its a no no as far as mortgage lenders seem to be, so its going to be a few more years before we can move out of rented accomodation.

It also ignores the impact on inflation on peoples wages. If inflation continues at 3%+ and wages are stagnant it is only a matter of time before these people find that they are in trouble. Though by that time it will be another governments problem.

I'm one lucky git, in the past decade I have had only 1 pay rise at inflation rate. In real terms my wages are 29% higher than when I started

People of the UK:
Not increasing fuel duty does not equate to saving you money.

I think I'll buy a mansion for several million pounds.
Oh no, wait, I won't.
Phew, I just saved several million pounds.

Morons.

with the PTA going up to £9440 we are about £600 a year in pocket between us ...

Smoking fags, drinking grog and driving around has obviously got to stop
though if you would like to continue the changes to tax codes make it ok. I really don't understand all this robbing Peter to pay Paul

The PTA increase actually takes me out of paying income tax completely

Are you still hit by NI payments?