The 2009 Budget…. apart from a few headline-grabbing plans, many people would probably feel either angry, bored or underwhelmed with what’s on offer.

Despite the fact that the economy is up sh*t creek, the national public debt  reaching record levels, the rate of unemployment going up, taxes are being raised, key public services facing spending cuts, and the recession getting deeper by the day, our parliamentarians will soon get a 12- week summer break, and have been bribed with oodles of taxpayers’ cash just to attend the House of Commons.

It’s enough to make even the less cynical sick. The chancellor Alistair Darling had the chance to change the script with this Budget… but he blew it, and we will all soon be paying for it.

This has been in the media for a while. A former Labour party spin-doctor, Philip Gould, has been accused of nepotism in his bid to get his daughter Georgia, to become the party’s candidate in the safe seat of Erith and Thamesmead for the next general election.

As a result, the planned candidate selection contest was postponed. Predictably, both supporters and opponents of Georgia were said to have entered a bitter slanging match, criticising each other for being dirty.

But why has this, in a long running series of scandals to hit the government, is classed as news? It’s not the first time the Labour leadership has trampled  on the constituency parties over the selection of candidates. Even in the majority of areas where they have been able to select their local candidates, it’s claimed that nepotism often rules supreme. The trade unions affiliated to the party have a major say on who gets picked, so any potential outsiders who want to change the system are often excluded. In the past, it was often said that if Labour had put a monkey up for election, people would vote for it.

Thankfully, that is changing. After twelve years of lies, evasions and broken promises, the next general election is the perfect chance for the people of Erith and Thamesmead to cast their votes against Labour…. whichever candidate they pick.

Conservative MP Damian Green won’t be charged after being earlier arrested for releasing leaked information about immigration levels from the Home Office. In this case, common sense has prevailed.

It’s been a disaster for the hapless Home Secretary Jacqui Smith from start to finish. Why on earth spend so much time and effort in trying to stop such information on controversial issues getting into the public domain? As I earlier posted, she, and those in the rest of the government, should have been more open and honest with the public about their policies in the first place.

If neither Green, nor, Christopher Galley, the civil servant who was at centre of the row, will be prosecuted, surely Ms Smith should be charged with wasting police time?