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The Budget speech if George Osborne had taken a truth drug... I am glad to say that there are signs the economy is picking up, mainly due to the vast temporary injection of cash we have delivered to the housing market which will stop the day after the General Election. None of the improvement is down to my fiscal policies, mainly because I haven't actually cut public spending, which continues to go up except for councils – but they had loads of fat to spare anyway. The only part of my fiscal consolidation, which is on course, is tax rises, with more people paying 40% tax and more income coming in from stamp duty, mainly because we've artificially inflated the housing market thereby pushing more houses into higher stamp duty brackets. I've no idea what will happen when we stop the Help to Buy subsidies and scale back quantitative easing. The chances are the economy will slide back again but by then I'll be foreign secretary or on the backbenches so I don't care. I'm also re-announcing several trunk road schemes which were previously announced in 2004, 2006 and 2010, as well as re-announcing infrastructure investment in broadband which I first announced in 2011 and then again in 2012. I recommend this Budget to the House.

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Osborne's truth drug Budget

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