Portrait of the week | 20 March 2004

In the eighth budget of his career, Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, proposed to narrow his deficit by cutting 40,000 public-sector jobs and selling off assets, including land worth £5 billion. The Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise would merge, making 14,000 people redundant. There was much tinkering. Duty on beer up 1p a pint, wine up 4p a bottle; spirits, champagne and cider stayed the same. Duty on cigarettes went up by 8p a packet; petrol duty up by 1.9p a litre. In consideration of the burden of council tax, people over 70 would get an extra £100 from the government. Stamp duty on house sales stayed still, and the threshold on inheritance tax went up to £263,000, below the margin of house-price inflation. Any assessment of euro-zone membership would wait till next year. ‘Britain is enjoying its longest period of sustained economic growth for more than 200 years’, he said.