IT was an uneventful Budget. A safe Budget. A clever Budget. Clever because Gordon Brown gave enough away, but not too much.

In 1997, Kenneth Clarke cut income tax on the eve of the election and his transparency cost the Tories votes. Voters like to feel money jingling in their pockets but blatant electioneering sticks in their throats.

Mr Brown, however, held back from drastic income tax cuts and, instead, found something for almost everyone - particularly families - with the right measure of prudence.

Enough people were as content as is possible after a Budget, and few could argue with any real conviction.

Complacency is dangerous, but Labour MPs will be feeling confident and the Tories know they need a miracle.

If there was a missed opportunity, it was in rural areas. On the day that the foot-and-mouth crisis spread for the first time to North Yorkshire, there was precious little to cheer the beleaguered farming industry.

Yes, the proposed pesticide tax was dropped, but that alone will be insufficient to make farmers feel more confident about a future that looks bleaker by the day.

Given that he is sitting on so much money, there was also scope for the Chancellor to do more to signal real aid for traditional manufacturing areas.

With the foot-and-mouth crisis and the Selby rail disaster dominating headlines in the past two weeks, the axe hanging over thousands of jobs in the steel industry has been somewhat overshadowed.

The foot-and-mouth epidemic - as devastating as it is - will eventually be controlled and its impact will fade.

But the harsh reality is that the industrial problems facing areas like Teesside and South Wales are with us to stay, and regeneration on a huge scale will be required.

We welcome the fact that regional development agencies like One NorthEast have been given greater flexibility to encourage enterprise, but our region requires more help than it currently receives under the ridiculously out-dated Barnett Formula system of Government funding.

The Chancellor abolished betting tax, but took precious few gambles, despite having plenty of cash to stake.

Uneventful. Safe. Clever.