budget

So yesterday's budget was from the self-proclaimed 'greenest government ever', but was it the greenest budget ever? How could it be, when it has done nothing to break our addiction with oil, hobbled the Green Investment Bank before it's even started, and provided a windfall for nuclear power.

While George Osborne was busy launching the most swingeing budget cuts in a generation yesterday, he went out of his way to stress that he was being "tough but fair" – and that the pain of his austerity measures would be shared by everyone.

But hey - apparently companies involved in nuclear arms building wont be sharing the pain. This was made clear by new Defence Secretary Liam Fox when he presented his plans for a Strategic Security and Defence Review (SDSR) to parliament.

Cuts, cuts, cuts! – the papers are full of debate about the budget, whether it was radical enough, what cuts different political parties are going to make if they get elected, what should be protected, what should be axed, when they should act…

Yet so far our politicians are missing the easiest cut of all. Cutting plans to waste money on new nuclear weapons which, as last year's In the Firing Line investigation revealed, will cost UK taxpayers a shocking £97 billion over the next 30 years.

The chancellor promises £1bn for clean energy projects, but much more will be needed

Although heavily trailed by the chancellor’s supporters as an environmental budget, in the end it turned out to be a lot less than a comprehensive green win.

Despite Mr Darling’s assurances that he gets the need for tougher carbon reduction targets, he backed away from raising fuel duty and found more money for motorways under pressure from road lobbyists.

What a pain it must be to be in charge of the nation's finances in these challenging economic times. It's easy to imagine the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, working feverishly into the night in a frantic attempt to make the sums at least appear to add up as he prepares for tomorrow's crucial pre-budget report. But what to cut when everything is a 'tough choice' - education, the NHS, or the unthinkable alternative - raising taxes?

All eyes were glued to the TV in the office this lunchtime to see whether Alistair Darling's budget would deliver the kind of changes we need to see if we want to give ourselves the chance to keep the lid on climate change.