Political Focus, with Bill Jacobs

KENNETH Clarke was in enthusiastic mood when he announced his Budget this week.

He told us he was neither Santa nor Scrooge. He gave us a penny off income tax and 26p off a bottle of scotch. But the perceived wisdom at Westminster today was that this was a funny old Budget.

It certainly was not the election winner that Ribble Valley Tory MP Nigel Evans and his right-wing colleagues were looking for.

Despite biting his lip, Mr Evans must have been far from pleased at his assertion that "by a happy coincidence" one effect of the Budget would be to ensure that Britain met the preliminary public borrowing, spending and inflation requirements for the European single currency by 1997.

And his admission that he could have lopped two pence rather than a single penny off base rate income tax will have infuriated those right wingers who unashamedly wanted a pre-election bribe.

They may wish that their standard bearers who met Mr Clarke last week had not back pedalled from their demands for 5p off basic rate to bring it down to 19p in the pound in a bid to get 2p or 3p off it instead.

While the wild men of the Tory right may have been upset, Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown must have been delighted. As he confidently, and possibly over confidently, looks forward into moving into 11 Downing Street, there was little he could quibble with. A penny off income tax is not something Labour need oppose. They can express virtuous reservations about Mr Clarke's wisdom, take, as one shadow cabinet member told me, a bullish line and let it through.

There is even no reason to reverse it in a post-Labour election victory mini-budget. There are a couple of minor taxes Mr Brown could reverse on insurance premiums and airports.

He can afford to end the persecution of lone parents if his leader Tony Blair's family values allow him.

And he has the windfall tax, which despite Tory protestations the City has already discounted, to sweep up any changes and pay for at least the first stage of Labour's cherished education, unemployment, law and order and health service pledges.

However, Mr Clarke was not supposed to be creating a Budget for the benefit of his Labour successor.

The big hope on the Tory backbenches - especially those many North Westerners with marginal seats - was big tax cut goodies to keep at least a few more in their plush Westminster offices even if it could not guarantee Prime Minister John Major another five years in Number 10. And even among the Cabinet there seemed little enthusiasm for Tuesday's financial package. When Social Security Secretary Peter Lilley told me that the Budget "excited and exhilarated" him there seemed a tone that suggested more irony than enthusiasm.

And when Scottish Secretary Michael Forsyth, arguably the most right-wing member of the Cabinet, briefed the Press he was not his normal cocky, chirpy cheerful self.

One senior MP told me that he was convinced that Mr Clarke had framed a Budget on the basis the Tories could not win the election on tax bribes alone. Indeed on the basis that the Tories could not win the election at all.

His view was that citizen Ken had his eye on his place in history. He wanted to be seen as the Chancellor who kept his nerve in terms of building a strong economy. The observer was a Labour MP who had some sympathy with the need to get the economy straight before his party took over.

But senior Tories also agreed - but with a much greater tone of alarm in their voices.

The Chancellor has spent the summer being battered by right-wing Tory MPs whose views on many things - most notably joining a European single currency - do not agree with his.

It may well be that he feels no incentive to help them keep their seats and oust him whether the Tories win or not. But Mr Clarke is, above all else, a realist politician. His performance was loud but his Budget was quiet

The contrast between the massive style of its delivery and the low level of its content suggests that he too believes that no Budget, however dramatic, would win the next election.

And having given up hope of a shock victory for John Major next year he had two major priorities.

The first was, as his critics observed, his place in history. And the second is his placing as the prime candidate in the centre left for the succession battle to Mr Major in the carnage that follows defeat.

Sadly for Tory chances, Mr Clarke's recruitment to the ranks of those jockeying for position for succession to the crown of the Tory Party is just the latest in a long line.

And this suggests that this Chancellor Cassandra may be absolutely right in his predictions of doom for the Government.

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