How was it for you?
I gave up smoking years ago but even I wince at the notion of £7.50 for a pack of twenty. £5 for your average bottle of wine may help me drink less and I rarely buy beer in London pubs 'cause I can't then afford the bus fare home.
On the plus side for London. We'll have superfast broadband connections and improved cycling lanes. The Chancellor fiddled and played a merry tune with a dearth of strings on his violin of options.
He declared "environmentally sustainable has to be fiscally sustainable". How right he is. But how wrong that he doesn't see the value in reversing that statement. Fiscally sustainable has to be environmentally sustainable and that's where his strings snapped, his bow shredded and his violin snapped. More roads and tax incentives for oil and gas drilling won't help us towards that carbon reduction target set by Number 10. Where are the incentives and investment in projects and businesses that improve our lives and create jobs suitable for those that need them who live in areas of least mobility.
Will ducks on your local park pond sink or swim as a result of the budget? Will swifts returning from their African wintering grounds scream in annoyance? Will goldfinches lose their gilt? Not overnight, but then they have bigger worries. Those ducks have to survive drought. The swifts returning to nest in the gaps in your eaves will find their old nests sealed-up as you draught-proof your home to prevent expensively heated warm air seeping from your house. As for those goldfinches ... they'll at least give us something to smile at as their bright yellow and red colours catch us by surprise.
The RSPB's vision for the future is one where we see London's Thames Estuary as the well-oiled and silent processing plant that it is. Its marshes quietly going about the business of filtering water, locking away carbon and protecting our Capital from the impact of storm surges. It's wildlife thanklessly re-processing and composting waste and ensuring that the natural processes that provide us with air to breathe and food to eat continue. The Thames estuary is in my view the most beautiful factory in the world.
That said. I have fallen in love with a boring machine that is as far removed from the wilderness of the estuary marshes as it's possible to get. Its use will have a remarkable impact on one bit of the Thames estuary. The Crossrail drilling machine will be spewing out soil, gravel and clay that will soon form an exciting and enormous new wetland habitat at Wallasea. It's all come about as a result of habitat regulations that George Osborne declared hampered development.
More than 19,000 people emailed the Chancellor as part of our pre-budget "Wake Up George" campaign. Thank you if you are one of those who stepped-up for nature with us. If you missed the opportunity, there are plenty more steps we can take together. George Osborne's kindly delayed announcing the Government's aviation review conclusions until "later this summer", after the London Mayoral elections. We'll be asking you to walk alongside us to ensure the legacy we pass on to the next generation is one where ducks bob safely on ponds, swifts glide and dive above our heads and goldfinches continue to look glorious.
Both Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne have referred to sustainable development whilst protecting our most precious places. You must like me, feel like you are shouting into a dark empty room .."The Thames Estuary and its marshes is just one of those precious places". In fact its so precious Europe has declared it off limits, The Ramsar convention has recognised it as a globally strategic wetland even our own government is seriously considering it as a Marine Conservation Zone and just awarded it a slice of a £7.5m grant to improve it further ... Am I missing something here or are our leaders on a different Planet ??