Budget `97: soundbites

Budget Comment

Britain faces four weaknesses: instability, under-investment, unemployment and waste of talent.

Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer

Anyone with a pension, anyone with an insurance policy, anyone who is working hard to build up a nest-egg for the future, will be hit by the windfall tax.

William Hague, leader of the Opposition

My advice is to quit while you are behind.

Tony Blair to William Hague

The Chancellor is first and foremost the guardian of the people's money. Gordon Brown

That's why they call him silly Lilley.

Denis Healey on Peter Lilley's accusations of a Budget leak

The message from motorists is `We don't want any more taxation without better transportation'.

RAC spokesman on the Budget

This, I regret, is a Budget for higher taxes and, at least in the next year, worse public services.

Paddy Ashdown, Liberal Democrat leader

We must always remember that rarely, if ever, has a government had such good cause to be grateful to its predecessor because of the state of the economy it has inherited. William Hague

There is a real gap between Tony Blair's words at the Earth Summit and what his Chancellor has said today.

Blake Lee-Harwood, Friends of the Earth

The Government has listened to the distress calls from doctors.

Dr Sandy Macara, chairman of the British Medical Association