Osborne to announce budget to try and win last minute voters
12/03/2015
Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, is set to announce his 2015 budget next week in a last minute attempt to swing the May general election in favour of the Conservatives.
Osborne will try to convince the public that they are benefitting from the economy’s positve turnaround by capitalising on record low inflation and low unemployment. It has also been predicted that he will announce an increase in the threshold at which earners start to pay income tax, which the government hopes will save as much as £200 a year for voters. He is predicted to announce help for Britain’s oil and gas industry, after the plunge in oil prices put the trade in jeopardy. He is also likely to use his budget speech to intensify his attacks on Labour's handling of the economy before the financial crisis, when it was in power.
The Labour shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, has claimed that the Conservatives planned cuts are "the most extreme in post-war history and the most extreme internationally".
This years general election, which takes place on 7th May, is set to be one of the most unpredictable elections in decades. The main political parties stand neck and neck in opinion polls and anti-establishment parties continue to gather support.
Peter Allen, a politics professor at London's Queen Mary University, told Reuters news agency:
"If you spend five years saying the economy is in trouble and we need to stop spending public money, it could be a difficult sell on the doorstep,"
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