A different challenge

By BBC political research editor David Cowling

Only a cynic would suggest that the Budget on 7 March has been designed to influence the outcome of the next general election.

Apart from the brief period of fuel rage last September, Labour has consistently led the Conservatives in the polls as the party most competent to manage the economy

However, it would also be surprising if our literate chancellor was unaware of Francis Bacon's dictum that wealth is like muck, best when it is spread around.

Gordon Brown's biggest challenge since 1997 has been to exorcise the twin ghosts of Labour's past: the legacies of tax increases and economic crises.

The government will want to portray this Budget as conclusive proof of their sustained success in managing the economy; and even the largesse they distribute on the day will be presented as the virtuous reward of prudent conduct.

This strategy appears to be successful so far among a large group of voters.

Chancellors are normally generous prior to general elections. But Labour's challenge this time is different from those posed in many past pre-election budgets

Apart from the brief period of fuel rage last September, Labour has consistently led the Conservatives in the polls as the party most competent to manage the economy.

The polls also show that while voters believe taxes have risen under Labour, they believe they would also have increased under the Conservatives.

So, the chancellor's main target audience this month has to be that very large section of the electorate whose complete lack of patience with the Conservatives in May 1997 was not matched by any great expectations of Labour's future economic performance.

Groups Brown must target

Over the past four years Gordon Brown's image as the Iron Chancellor and his constant theme of "Prudence" has all been aimed at surpassing those low expectations by a very large margin.

He now needs to turn four years of economic growth into a large political dividend.

Specific groups he needs to target include pensioners whom Labour infuriated with their 75p-a-week pensions increase last year. Slow to anger but also slow to forgive when they are, this is an important group of voters with whom the chancellor needs to make his peace.

Core Labour voters across Britain will be offered a vista of unprecedented public expenditure and reductions in the level of poverty in order to re-energise them for the forthcoming election campaign

Mothers with young children helped eliminate the gender gap at the last election (the long-standing tendency of women to vote Conservative more than men); and for many of them public expenditure on schools and the health service rates as importantly as tax cuts do for others.

Motorists will doubtless be placated further as the government has no wish to see anything like the disastrous drop in their poll support last autumn repeated during the general election campaign.

Core Labour voters across Britain will be offered a vista of unprecedented public expenditure and reductions in the level of poverty in order to re-energise them for the forthcoming election campaign.

Timely generosity

Much of this is predictable: chancellors are normally generous prior to general elections. But Labour's challenge this time is different from those posed in many past pre-election Budgets.

It is much more important for the government to confirm their ability to manage a successful economy than it is to target any one or any number of groups within the population.

Voters have shown a strong propensity in the past to forgive transgressions by government if they trust them to run the economy well.

If Labour secures a second term in government with a strong majority it will be much more because it has transformed its economic reputation than because of any specific tax cuts or benefits increase, however well received these might be.