Darling's last stand: What the papers say about the Bore-dget

So, the morning after the very dull afternoon before. How are mainstream media opinion writers reacting to Alistair Darling's rather tedious budget?

The editorial of The Times starts: "The Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke for an hour yesterday, but managed to say almost nothing. There was no vision for the future, no radical thinking, precious little courage and no indication of what a Labour fourth term might be for."

The lead article of The Independent tries to adopt a politically balanced position. While noting Darling's performance as a politician as a masterclass of the art, they go on to say: "There is a budget for an election and a budget for the nation's future, and the two are not necessarily the same thing. What Mr Darling did yesterday was to fire the opening salvoes of the election campaign and secure some of the territory from which Labour intends to fight. But he was singularly vague about where the spending axe might eventually have to fall, and his attention to small business overshadowed the expectation of lower public spending that could reduce opportunities for those very same businesses."

As you'd maybe expect, everything is Labour love-in-central over at The Guardian, but in their editorial piece, we did find the stated reservation: "This was a budget without big headline measures for Labour activists to tour around constituency doorsteps – and it was also one that deferred the tough decisions on cuts until after the election."

The Daily Mail has scathing words in it's editorial. They say: "By turns disingenuous, cynical and, let's be blunt, untruthful - the lies by omission in this Budget were simply awesome - yesterday was the moment that Alistair Darling lost his grip on posterity. Instead of an honest attempt to chart this country's route out of terrifying indebtedness, he delivered a Budget for his party and not his country."

It's a similar verdict over at the Daily Express where Patrick O'Flynn writes: "Alistair Darling yesterday delivered an hour-long party election broadcast rather than a genuine Budget. His speech had virtually nothing to offer in terms of repairing shattered public finances."

Edmund Conway in the Daily Telegraph writes: "No sooner had Alistair Darling sat down shortly after lunchtime than the gilt market suddenly crumpled. Investors around the world started selling British government bonds, pulling their money out of the country as fast as possible. As markets closed last night, the stampede was continuing. [...] it was a hint of what could happen if Labour still wields control after the election."

The Sun's editorial concludes in a similar vein, noting: "It is Labour's lack of a detailed plan to reduce the £167billion deficit that places us in greatest peril. Sure enough, the stricken Pound fell further as the world lost more faith in Labour. Unless Labour are dumped, we face Greek-style economic chaos. The shambles was summed up when Mr Darling had to cross a picket line to enter the Commons, with unions promising mayhem if public pay was capped."