All that matters now is growth

With every Budget, the early Cameron emphasis on greenery and General Well Being not Gross Domestic Product seems a more distant memory. Today’s Budget showed that, to Osborne at least, growth now trumps these more abstract concerns.
 
So, we saw an announcement that the planning rules would come into force pretty much as planned from next Tuesday. This means that Osborne has simply overridden all the bureaucratic and legal objections from DCLG. Although, I understand that councils who already have a sufficiently pro-development local plan will have a year to adjust to the new rules.
 
Sunday trading rules, a classic bit of General Well Being paternalism, are also going on the scrap heap. Suspending them for the Olympics means that the suspension will almost certainly boost retail activity; justifying a permanent abolition.
 
Then, there’s a new gas strategy. This will, I understand, be based on the large scale production of shale gas, requiring lots of fracking which won’t please the green lobby.