Is Darling planning a 'sensible' Budget?

By Norman Smith
Chief political correspondent, BBC Radio 4

This will not be "a Christmas tree Budget". No shiny presents, no surprise give-aways, no feel-good fanfares. Instead the key word at this Budget, we're told, is "sensible".

The chancellor is unlikely to announce any major cuts so close to an election

It is hardly an inspirational, rallying cry on the eve of an election - "Let's be sensible."

And it is hardly the sort of message that is going to galvanise Labour supporters or win over floating voters.

But Alistair Darling has decided he's got to make a virtue out of necessity. There simply is no money to throw around. And were he to do so, then the fear is the markets would simply hit the panic button.

So instead Mr Darling will point to the better than expected borrowing figures, the gradual fall in unemployment and the first tentative signs of recovery - to argue that the government is slowly but surely turning the economy around.

The chancellor will contrast this "sensible" approach with what he will claim is the Tories' "reckless" rush to cut spending.

Hence, there are not expected to be any new spending cuts unveiled by Mr Darling, or any further tax rises (beyond those already pencilled in). And Mr Darling will stick to the government's agreed timetable of halving the deficit in four years.

But, with an election just weeks away, Mr Darling will be under massive pressure from the man next door to let his "Mr Sensible" mask slip just a little.

Leaving a legacy

The extra cash provided by the bank-bonus tax and the lower than expected benefit bills has given Mr Darling a little bit more to play with.

The temptation will be to use the money to win some decent headlines about helping the young unemployed or supporting business.

If it is Mr Darling's last Budget, who will next hold high the battered red box?

But there is a strand of thinking in Labour circles that it may be more politically astute to use the spare money to pay off more of the deficit. The thinking being that this would wrong-foot the Tories and undermine their claim that the government wasn't serious about dealing with the deficit.

Mr Darling will also have one eye on his own legacy.

He knows that in all probability this will be his last Budget regardless of whether Labour win or lose the next election.

It is almost taken as a given at Westminster that if Labour emerge victorious, then Ed Balls will be given the post he has craved for so long and Mr Darling will be released to enjoy more time in his native Edinburgh.

Indeed, even Mr Darling seems to sense he's coming to the end of the road.

How else could one read his recent remarks about "the forces of hell" being deployed against him - other than as those of a man who knows he no longer has anything to fear?

So at this, his likely final Budget, Mr Darling may well conclude that it is no bad epithet to go down in history as the chancellor who ignored the pre-election pressures and presented a "sensible Budget."