In what could be taken as an ominous sign for the future, Brits below the Scottish border were unable to live stream the debate on Scotland’s independence last night – because the STV Player crashed under the weight of viewers trying to watch the event. The debate between pro-independence First Minister Alex Salmond and Labour …

BudgetIn a budget lacking the traditional pre-election giveaway, the chancellor dedicated much of his speech to congratulating himself on measures taken in the last two years to mitigate the impact of recession and bail out the financial sector. The most significant tax change is to stamp duty, which will rise to five per cent for …

Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling has asked ministers to start drawing up hit lists to show what their departments will do to slash government spending. Saddled with massive debt of £178bn and with promises to ringfence spending on education, the NHS, police and overseas development spending, the government needs …

Alistair Darling is making a habit of taking an axe to the projects of his ministerial colleagues in media interviews, if this weekend's press is to be believed. Last week he forced health secretary Andy Burnham to give an emergency statement in the Commons by waxing confusedly lyrical on the Andrew Marr Show about how the NHS …

The Chancellor's pre-Budget report got a distinctly mixed reaction from business and technology groups. Although tax cuts for companies focussed on research was welcomed, no-one welcomed the hike in National Insurance. The Federation of Small Businesses welcomed the delay in the 1p increase in corporation tax for smaller firms …

Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling has promised spending cuts in order to try and rein in rampant government spending, helped by a windfall tax on bankers' bonuses. In his last pre-budget report before the election, Darling promised £5bn in cuts from technology projects, outsourcing prison management and reforming …

UpdateThe chancellor Alistair Darling this weekend appeared to signal the pre-Budget report will include some major cuts to the £12.7bn NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT). The hints, dropped in an interview on the Andrew Marr Show yesterday, have already drawn protests from doctors. Darling said: "I'm not doing a spending review …

CommentWell, wasn't that a wonderful little budget? We're broke, borrowing the entire output of many a small nation, and this as a result of the policies from the man who promised to abolish boom and bust. But it's not all bad news. Some of it is worse. Take, as a minor example, the increase in statutory redundancy pay announced. …

George Osborne has described Alistair Darling's pre-budget report as the largest ever borrowing by a British government and leaving a tax bombshell timed to explode as the economy recovers. He proclaimed that "prudence is dead", and said PM Gordon Brown's claims to have abolished boom and bust were ludicrous. He said the …

Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling's pre-Budget report promised more help for small businesses in order to make sure the first recession of the new millennium "is slower and shallower". He expects the UK economy will shrink in 2009 somewhere between 0.75 per cent and 1.25 per cent. This time last year, Darling …

Alistair Darling's much-leaked cut in VAT from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent has been welcomed by the small business community - although there are worries about how it will be implemented. Darling is expected to unveil the plan this afternoon in a pre-budget statement, along with a raft of other measures to help individuals …

The UK government has announced a dramatic £50bn part-nationalisation plan for the country’s struggling banking system. Eight of Blighty’s biggest banks and building societies will be handed the extra capital. Some had earlier urged UK.gov to put together a rescue package after taking a hammering in the City. The government …

Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer warned today that no company is safe from the financial crisis. We all knew that of course, but when an ego the size of Ballmer's decides to gulp you know we're really in trouble. Reuters reports that Ballmer told a news conference in Norway: "I think one has to anticipate that no company is …

The Tory Party is fighting a by-election in Crewe and Nantwich and showed yesterday that it is ready for power by engaging in computer incompetence that is normally seen as the preserve of our Labour overlords. A local Tory official accidentally sent several Excel spreadsheets containing details on thousands of voters to radio …