The clock is ticking

Well, you learn something new every day.

I rang the Treasury press office yesterday to ask them whether they had any idea of the date of the Budget.

They said that the Chancellor hadn't decided yet.

If I believed them, I'd be worried: a Chancellor who can't even make his mind up about that would hardly be fit to handle the country's finances in these desperate times.

They also said that a Budget can't be held within three months of a PBR, whch was news to me. That meant 3 March is not possible.

All the betting seems to be on 24 March at the moment, so we've put a countdown clock onto our homepage to remind the Chancellor how long he's got to write his speech.

But I find it extremely irritating that we must (surely?) be less than a month away, and still we have no firm date.

Once we have the Budget out of the way, I'm going to restart a campaign to at least get the dates of the Budget and the PBR announced well in advance.

That must be good for politicians and civil servants as well as for tax advisers.

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