Westminster Report from Brian Binley MP for 24th April.Published on Thursday, 23 April 2009 at 13:43 
As the small print of Wednesday's Budget continues to blow up in the face of the Government, and in particular the Prime Minister and his Chancellor, I can only look on and think what a wasted opportunity this was at a critical time for our country.
I have no sympathy for Gordon Brown or Alistair Darling as politicians. Brown is the architect of this mess, and the buck stops with him. But I care passionately about the well being of the country I live in, and it was with despair that I sat in the House of Commons and listened to the Chancellor's speech.
I am grateful for the opportunities I have had in the local media to cast my judgement on the Budget over the past couple of days, so in this column I will focus on three particular areas where pleas for help have totally ignored by the Government.
To start with the pub industry. I have been actively campaigning on its behalf, and it is so sad to see many local pubs being forced into closure every month. The Chancellor is well aware of this. So what does he do? He ignores the views of the public, landlords, consumer groups, industry representatives and MPs from all parties, including me, who have been calling for action to save the British pub, not destroy it. Nice one Alistair!
British hauliers face a double hammer blow as a direct result of yet another increase in tax on fuel - 2p per litre next September, followed by a revised fuel duty escalator effective in March next year of inflation plus half a pence per litre.
This will cause further grief to the haulage industry in this country, and will lead to further increases in the cost of everything we buy, including food and other essentials. It also threatens not just the competitiveness, but also the very existence, of many UK haulage firms, and I just cannot understand how the Government can turn a blind eye. Nice one, Alistair!
And this Budget was another slap in the face to the small business community. The Government did nothing for them either, ignoring the opportunity to help the businesses that were at the heart of job creation and economic recovery. There were oppportunities to offer help and support, but it was overlooked, and more jobs will continue to be under threat. Nice one, Alistair.
To be honest, there was so much about this Budget for which this Government will be taken to task, and I have no doubt they will ultimately be punished at the Ballot Box in a big way, though their legacy of economic incompetence will take years to repair. When the Chancellor said he believed we would have a 3.5% growth rate in 2011, I honestly had to ask if he was doing a stand up comedy routine or delivering the nation's Budget report. I loved the "Alistair in Wonderland" headline reaction to that statement!
It was a busy day in the House of Commons on Wednesday. The warm up act for the Budget Statement was Prime Ministers' Questions, and while David Cameron tormented Gordon Brown about the economy, the highlight for me was the Opposition Leader's cutting remark about Special Advisors, or SpAds as they are known around Westminster.
It was David's chance to make reference to the disgraceful 'Smear-gate' affair, where Downing Street staff cooked up plans to make scandalous allegations about senior Conservative Party figures which had absolutely no truth or substance. Moral bankruptcy as well as economic!
For the Prime Minister to say he had no knowledge of what was going on was to be cautious with the truth, to put it politely. And to take so long to issue an apology was as reprehensible as the behaviour of Damien McBride, a known Government bully boy, and the ludicrous Derek Draper.
Alas, such behaviour has been commonplace in and around the Government since it first came to power - and if you think I am being purely partisan as a member of the Opposition Party, I can assure you that voters of all political persuasion have stopped me to tell me how appalled they were by the whole affair.
And if Brown and Darling thought the Budget might do something to help boost their cause, as their public image drops like a stone, then they failed miserably. A wasted opportunity.
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