Budget day blog

Last Modified: 12 Mar 2008
By: Newsroom blogger

Inside the morning meeting...

It's budget day, and like all news teams around the country we'll be rolling out teams to cover it.

The speech is at 12.30pm and Gary Gibbon will be sifting through Chancellor Alistair Darling's first budget delivery; Faisal Islam will be looking at the figures and see if the government does have room to stimulate the economy and Katie Razzall will be looking at the energy issue and asking if the Chancellor will do anything to help people in times of these rising fuel prices?

"The budget promises to be grim reading, with the Chancellor saying the economy is worse than last time - but it's definitely NOT a recession. We are growing still, more than other countries and that's a fact."

"The economy is slowing down, so he won't raise taxes as that would just accelerate a cool down."

"This budget could actually do very little, they don't have much room to move."

"But he could pull something out on plastic bags and do a crowd pleaser there."

Elsewhere, we're following up on last night's Simon Mann exclusive, will there be a new investigation following the report? And what's the government's position on Mr Mann's forthcoming trial?

We'll also be covering Chief policeman Michael Todd's death - there's lots of opinions floating about on the nature of his death and no-one knows yet what really happened, but it is a sad fact that many successful 50-year-old's do fall prey to depression at the height of their career. Nick Martin reports more tonight.

The winds are picking up again around the country with seven lorries blown over on the motorways. Some have said that "today's weather is worse than Monday's", but another pointed out an expert's answer to the question, is this bad weather exceptional? The reply was:

"Yes if you live in the south, no if you live in the north."

Finally, Nick Glass is out doing ballet - the New York City Ballet has turned up for the first time in 25 years and it promises to add colour and light to the end of day that needs it.