THIS year is the Chinese Year of the Snake. There were some slippery characters wriggling on the front bench during the Budget.

The much heralded tax-free break for the first £10,000 you earn is tiny and shades in comparison to what the rich are raking in – a corporation tax cut and a millionaires’ tax windfall in April.

Mr Osborne’s other measures were dubious at best.

The introduction of childcare vouchers worth £1,200 is nearly three years down the line. It also discriminates against stay-at-home mothers and those on low incomes.

There was the return of a dubious five per cent up-front mortgage, a home buying project in which the Government will also underwrite up 20 per cent of a deposit up to the value of £600,000.

That’s great news for the wealthy who will get a spare home subsidy but no such leniency for those least well off who will be thrown out of their homes in April unless they cough up the hated bedroom tax As for the unemployed, they were well and truly stuffed. Mr Osborne boasts a record 1.25 million private sector jobs have been created since 2010.

Someone please tell him that businesses are firing not hiring and that unemployment has just risen by 7,000 to 2.5 million.

Youth unemployment is also nudging ever closer to the one million mark and the pitiful benefit rise for a young jobseeker on £56.25 a week is just 56p a week.

Stephen Dixon, Redcar.