Richard Kettlewell

Something's shifted on NI thresholds; I lose a third of what I 'gain' in lowered income tax.

Overall, it's neither high enough nor low enough to affect my vote: a couple of hundred pounds is neither here nor there.

So what would change my mind? This budget has no effect in removing perverse incentives at the bottom end of the labour market: it may well be that the most positive result of Gordon Brown's move next door will be the promise of a new Chancellor without the petty vindictiveness, and the irrational loathing of Frank Field that has distorted all attempts at a co-ordinated reform of taxation and welfare. We still need to eliminate 'traps' and the absurdly high confiscation rates for people attempting a transition from low incomes (especially with housing benefit) to a moderate wage.

I would vote Conservative - or even Communist, BNP or Lib-Dem - if there was talk of rolling back the ACT credit botch that has permanently damaged everybody's lifetime finances through it's pernicious (and little-publicised) effect on life and pension funds. Taking the Big Picture, Gordon may have delivered macroeconomic stability but he has also implemented regulatory uncertainty and unnecessary compexity; another Nigel Lawson will be needed, taking a machete to the 365-page monster that is this years' Finance bill and reducing it to something that delivers 'Simple, Compulsory and Low' taxation.

Or even 'simple, compulsory and higher' taxation: buried in all that complexity, I suspect that there are many subtle and damaging distortions, far worse than ACT or even the uncertainty over settled trusts that marked out Gordon Brown as the ill-advised administrative ninny that he really is.