two stools, and wound up in danger of satisfying neither of the contending interest groups he wanted to keep happy. €22,000.
On the one hand, he was determined to keep New ners" happy by handing out even more cuts in business taxes and avoiding any increased taxes on top On the other, he has come under pressure to funnel some of his growing war chest of unspent tax surpluses into welfare spending, to pla cate growing disartection and demoralisation among Labour's supporters and core vote.
On the first objective he browly succeeded, with fur ther cuts in capital gains tax. cuts in road tax on lorries. and oy maintaining britain s astoundingly low levels of contributions. Nor did he antagonise the fat cats by lift. sion have ing the reactionary cap on those earning (100,000 a year by more y than those on But many employers had Cary ToDa for measures that would bring down the value of the pound and halt the decimation of manufacturing industry: Brown.
recruited Norman Lamont, clearty believes that in his a growth of unemployment is a once worth paying But as a giveaway buaget it Ropped for lack of sufficient the 10,000 Children living in the most dire levels of poverty in this (4 weekly benefit, but pensioners eking out an existence on the miserable state per to be content with a miserly 75p increase, with a when they get to directly to schools in a delib. 75 years ole. There have education authorities For those on benefits, for fares over the long queues waiting for Brown's affordable housing, for students and staff in higher edument of an cation, and for the elderly extra 62 bil- people dependent on dwin. dline social services NHS bud. facing another round of cuts get this and increased charges - there year, and was barely even a mention. 10.000 Few workers will feel incined to celebrate the ip in nurses to be the pound tax cut handed to them by a tight-fisted But on closer examination only €600m of this new bit to make Britain a meaner, money has so far been passed harder place for the working on to health authorities and Trusts, with the remainder As a bid to win back Labour's core vote it was a subject to rigorous strings:
extra" nurses coming elections in May are "extra" nurses as Frank thumbs down from the electorate, for whom only the Dobson (remember him!" promised to recruit last year.
On education, too, the tude of the Tory opposition now acts as much of an be used to ram through incentive to back New Labour's unpopular reforms. against Chechnya, it is possible that he will On April 19-20 the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce have organised a major conference Russia 2000 which is billed as the biggest international business conference in Britain this year. Speakers include Chubais, author of Chernomyrdin, former Prime Minister and now head of Russia's gas monopoly, Zyuganov from the Russian Communist Party, and ultra-right wing leader The Campaign to Stop the War in Chechnya is calling a protest outside the Queen Elizabeth lI Conference Centre, Westminster, from 4.308pm on April 19 under the slogans: * Stop Russia's war in Chechnya, * Stop the Market Madness, * Stop Zhirinovsky.
Outlook