Today's Budget was as feared a direct attack on the poorest and displayed an ugly lack of care for our nation's children. Cuts to tax credits, pregnancy grants taken from new mums, child benefit frozen for years, support for disabled people being cut, housing support slashed, attacks on the public sector - they are just as we expected from the same old Tories aided and abetted by their new Libdem partners.
 
Rises in VAT will hit the poorest people the hardest and force families to pay over £400 a year extra on household bills. But yet as late as this April , Nick Clegg, now the Deputy Prime Minister declared "Liberal Democrats have costed, in full, our proposals for tax cuts. We can tell you, penny for penny, pound for pound, who pays for them. We will not have to raise VAT to deliver our promises. The Conservatives will. Let me repeat that: Our plans do not require a rise in VAT. The Tory plans do." This is a shameful day for the Libdems in Scotland and they will be judged by their actions over the coming weeks and months.

I have no doubt that Child poverty will increase and the hopes of growth reversed as unemployment rises. Taking such draconian cuts in public services - estimated at over 23% for most departments -over the next 4 years will lead to misery for the many and the real risk of deflation. We need to spread the costs on those with the broadest shoulders and to provide the incentives for growth so that jobs will increase. Even the new Government's Office of Budgetary control pointed out that the Labour Government's fiscal stimulus had increased tax revenue and helped to lower unemployment.