THE £4 billion-worth of cuts Osborne has proposed is simply trivial, to quote Godfrey Bloom: “£4 billion is like being two years behind with the mortgage and trying to make amends by cancelling the Sunday papers”.

In simple terms, the government borrows approximately £90 billion a year, when we should be running a surplus, i.e not spending more than we raise in taxes.

There are endless ways to get the UK into a surplus, so many excessive budgets we could cut; corporate welfare (£90 billion), quango/NGO’s (£37-60 billion), EU membership (£12 billion), overseas aid (£12 billion) etc.

If we think about this logically we can reduce debt and increase growth at the same time, by significantly reducing spending we could afford even greater tax cuts, and this would stimulate more growth and consumer spending.

I feel this budget is very middle of the road, it’s full of little goodies like tax cuts, new tax-free ISAs with up to a £1,000 bonus a year, and a freeze on fuel and alcohol duty, so there is very little for people to grumble about.

The key issue with this budget is that it lacks any progress or direction, we’re no closer to a stable financial position, and it’s the future generations that will pay for the consistent overspending.

This budget overall will make a lot of people feel better off, but I fear this is a case of short-term gain, long-term pain.

James Grant Northwich