"Nasty PMI data from France and Germany, the latter especially, and admission from bailout powers that they got it wrong with the bank levy proposal for Cyprus and that it does represent systemic risk to eurozone has seen markets break below recent support," said Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets.
Markets fall as concerns over Cyrpus continue.
08.46 While Peter argues the Tories are making Labour's mess worse (see 08.39), The Telegraph's political editor Robert Winnett has argued that yesterday's Budget was a "small step to erasing the Omnishambles" of Osborne's policies last year.
In a Budget speech that made frequent reference to aspiration, there was no doubting what the Chancellor meant.
He aspired, above all else, to avert the kind of fallout that made a laughing stock of Budget 2012, the so-called Omnishambles. If, by the weekend, we are no longer talking about Budget 2013, that will be seen by some within HM Treasury as a qualified success.
Last year, Mr Osborne was still defending his measures by the time the Easter holidays came around, as a hastily assembled package unravelled into recriminations about warm pasties, philanthropy and the plight of the static caravan.
So, on Thursday morning, the Chancellor might just — just — begin to allow himself to breathe the faintest sighs of relief.
08.39 The Telegraph's chief political commentator Peter Oborne has posted his latest blog and says the Tories have made the Labour mess worse.
The ugly truth is that there appears to be no political solution to the calamity facing us all.
Very few Chancellors of the Exchequer have taken office with a stronger mandate than George Osborne had when he entered the Treasury in the early summer of 2010. Even the dogs in the street sensed that something had gone wrong. Even Labour voters got the point that Gordon Brown had spent far too much money, with the result that the economy had ground to a halt.
Admittedly, few people exactly cheered when the Chancellor pledged his age of austerity. But a surprisingly large number of them understood. A groundswell of sensible, moderate, mainstream opinion – some of it on the Left – was behind the new Chancellor and his pledge to sort out Labour's mess.
Sadly, Mr Osborne has missed his chance. Indeed, in the wake of yesterday's non-event of a Budget, we can fairly conclude that the Chancellor has failed.
Mr Osborne has talked of austerity ever since his "emergency Budget" almost three years ago. But at no stage has he delivered it, or anything like it. He has lacked the courage to challenge Mr Brown's inheritance. His general approach to the economy has been the same – massive spending, tempered by deceit.
08.30 After yesterday's raucous Budget, with the Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons having to interject several times to tell both sides to be quiet, MPs are back in the Commons today to debate the policies announced, led by deputy Chancellor Ed Balls.
That will be from 9.30am.
The House of Commons was full noisy as Osborne delivered the Budget.
08.21 Roger Bootle, managing director at Capital Economics, says yesterdays Budget was a "do nothing, blame everyone else Budget".
Has the Chancellor been reading Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?
He sounded to me like an imperial treasurer in the Empire's dying days, convinced that the only way for the Emperor to survive was through bread and circuses, yet realising that because of the state of the treasury, it had to be bread without wheat and circuses without gladiators.
Of course, the parlous state of the finances was blamed on the usual suspects – the last government and nasty abroad, aka the eurozone. But it doesn't seem to have occurred to the Chancellor that the eurozone is in such a parlous state partly because its members are following the same policy of fiscal austerity that he is.
08.13 More from George Osborne on morning TV (see 07.25).
Mr Osborne insisted the nation's economy was moving in the right direction.
"I've laid down a challenge to myself and this country," he told ITV's Daybreak. "We've got to confront those problems, not just shy away from them.
"But we're on the right track. It is a hard road, but we're getting there."
Mr Osborne said he wanted to help "hard-working families", adding that they would be in a better situation as a result of the Budget, with help to buy their own homes and to keep more of the money they earn.
"We're doing everything we can in very difficult times - which I don't excuse, people know these are difficult times - to help all those families who aspire to work hard and get on," he told hosts Aled Jones and Lorraine Kelly.
The Chancellor said he believed the economy would be improved as a result of the Budget, but admitted he knew he would be judged by its success.
"As a Government, we've come in and been confronted by these debt problems. It's very, very difficult, and of course we will be judged on whether we made the right call," he said.
"But my judgment was that when you're in a debt crisis, when your borrowing is high, if you deliberately seek to add to your borrowing, you're going to make the situation worse."
He also defended the move to increase the number of people applying for mortgages, but said: "If we were in a housing boom, we wouldn't be doing this."
The Chancellor told Daybreak: "We just want to help families, hard-working families, buy a home, put down a deposit and afford the mortgage."
He said there were many who could not afford a 20%-30% deposit on a house, but added: "I'm not talking about returning to the days of the 125pc Northern Rock mortgages. I just want to help families, hard-working families."
George Osborne preparing to leave number 11 Downing Street before the Budget yesterday.
08.05 Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls has also been doing the rounds on morning TV. He said that only the rich were better off following Mr Osborne's Budget.
He said: "He told us two years ago he would get the economy growing, get rising living standards and get the deficit down.
"Borrowing is up, the national debt is rising, the economy is absolutely flat and everybody in our country is worse off year by year, apart from the rich. It's not working."
He went on to tell BBC Radio 4's Today Programme: "If this is success I would hate to see their failure. The economy has flatlined for two years."
"If we had an election in three weeks we would not be going ahead with the cut to top rate tax and would be adding a Mansion Tax," he add.
Shadow chancellor Ed Balls
07.55 Kamal Ahmed, the Sunday Telegraph's business editor, has said that the policies in the budget directed at businesses are a "welcome start".
It is a golden rule of Budgets that it is better to concentrate on the price of booze, fags and how much tax people pay because all the other stuff is of no interest to the general public. And it is the general public that ultimately decides the fate of Chancellors.
What was unusual about this year's Budget was that it was – in the main – about business.
The reason was simple. George Osborne needs one thing to happen to have any confidence that when it comes to May 2015 he won't be picking up his P45 with all the other Conservative government ministers, turfed out by a public tired of a never-ending sooty tunnel called "austerity".
That one thing is growth. The Chancellor knows, as any sensible politician does, that growth only comes from the private sector investing, creating jobs and therefore giving people an opportunity to spend their money and pay taxes.
The state can engage in as many liquidity wheezes as it likes to grease the engines of recovery but that is all it ever is. Grease. The engine always remains the private sector.
07.40 The Telegraph's Jeremy Warner has said Osborne's latest budget will do no harm to the economy, but is "far from being the transformative exercise the country needs".
With all eyes focused on Westminster for George Osborne's fourth Budget, you might reasonably have let events in Cyprus – normally of interest only to second home owners and stationed British servicemen – take a back seat.
Yet the truth is that as the latest epicentre of the eurozone's mounting financial and economic crisis, what's happening in Cyprus is of far more significance than the distinctly underwhelming package of measures the Chancellor had to announce in London on Wednesday.
Europe's crassly inept response to Cyprus's banking meltdown is further evidence of a Continent quite incapable of getting to grips with its problems. Since the Chancellor's hopes of a "normal" economic recovery taking hold by the middle of the year are pinned crucially on some sort of an abatement in the eurozone crisis, this is, to put it mildly, something of a setback. There's no help coming from that quarter.
07.25 George Osborne has been doing the rounds on breakfast television.
First a quick chat with ITV's Daybreak (which he threatened to boycott in 2011 after being ridiculed by the then presenter Adrian Chiles).
He defended the budget, saying he "was very straight with the country about the problems we face".
He added: "I lay down a challenge to myself and to this country which is we have got to confront those problems but we are on the right track, it is a hard road but we are getting there."
Next up he was talking to the BBC's Breakfast Show, where he said there were still "lots more difficult decisions to be made on spending to get the deficit down".
"We need to do more to tackle our nation's debt. That's why in next couple of months, there will be more difficult decision on cuts."
He also defended his decision to pump money into the housing market, saying it was a "tragedy" that people's dreams of owning a home had been hit by the credit crunch.
"The government should help people who want to buy their own home, provided they can afford it," he said.
"The objective is to help people who don't have a home get one, and those who want or need more space, because maybe they have had a kid, get a new home."
Osborne on ITV's Daybreak this morning.
07.15 A quick look at the front pages of today's papers which are, unsurprisingly, dominated by the Budget.
Front pages of Thursday's papers.
06.50 So who are the winners and losers of the budget? The Telegraph's personal finance editor Andrew Oxlade takes a closer look and here are some of them:
Winners:
First-time home buyers
Buyers who put up a 5pc deposit can get another 20pc from the Government. This loan will be interest-free for the first five years. There will be a ceiling of £600,000 on the value of properties bought.
Secondly, a "Mortgage Guarantee" scheme will be made available from January, will incentivise lenders to give those with smaller deposits better mortgages There will be guarantees to back £130bn of mortgages.
Basic-rate taxpayers
The personal allowance - the amount you can earn tax free before basic-rate income tax kicks in - will be raised to £10,000 from April 2014.
Beer drinkers
The alcohol duty escalator, introduced by Labour and so far retained by the Coalition, was scrapped on beer and duty was even cut by 1p - a 2pc reduction in duty - from Sunday evening.
Motorists
The "escalator" due to push up fuel duty again in September was once again waived.
Equitable Life victims
Victims of the collapse of Equitable Life who had previously been denied compensation will now receive £5,000. Those on lower incomes will get £10,000.
Losers:
Public sector workers
State staff were told to expect an additional year of austerity pay rises, with the 1pc annual increases lasting until 2015/2016.
Wine drinkers
The "escalator", which raises duty on alcohol by a minimum of inflation plus 2pc, was kept on wine.
Smokers
The "vices" escalator was also enforced on cigarettes with duty rising by.
Beer duty was cut by 1p.
06.25 Many of the welcome policies announced include raising the tax free allowance to £10,000 and cutting beer duty by 1p. But, how does the budget really affect you?
The Telegraph has created a graphic so you can work out if you will be worse or better off as a result of the policies announced yesterday.
06.15 Just as a reminder of what was announced in the Budget 2013, here are the key points:
• Growth forecast halved to 0.6pc for 2013
• £10,000 tax free allowance brought forward a year to 2014
• Beer duty cut by 1p
• September fuel duty rise scrapped
• Fresh support for home buyers with 20pc Government loan
• New remit for Bank of England's MPC
06.00 Good morning and welcome to the Budget live blog.
We have all had a night to sleep on the policies that Chancellor George Osborne announced yesterday in his fourth Budget and today we will be bringing you further reaction to what was announced as well as looking at how they will affect you.
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