Welcome to the FT’s rolling coverage of the UK Budget.

By Kiran Stacey at Westminster and Gordon Smith, Michael Hunter, Darren Dodd, Tom Burgis and Ben Fenton on the FT news desk.

All times are GMT.

16.45 So, that is about it for the live blog. The main FT coverage can be found in the usual place.

We thought we would leave you with a small image of what life in the Financial Times London newsroom is like on Budget Day. Below, you can see Chris Giles, economics editor, briefing the rest of us on what it all means. This picture was taken less than two minutes after the Chancellor sat down at 13.29.

So, from the FT live news desk, enjoy digesting the ramifications of the 2012 Budget, whether you are an outraged pensioner, a relieved 1-percenter or the Chancellor of the Exchequer. FT Live Blogs will be back just as soon as something big enough breaks. Goodnight.

 

16.25 John Authers and Martin Wolf parse the 2012 Budget

16.06 The top trending phrase on Twitter in the UK at present is #grannytax.

And one of the main users of Twitter, Lord Prescott, has his say on the Budget.

16.01 The FT’s Christopher Cook tweets:

15.57 This was a budget, opines the FT’s Philip Stephens
that was in part “about George Osborne’s ambitions to establish
himself as David Cameron’s heir apparent”.

 

The chancellor talked about a Budget to put Britain back to work, but

the measure most likely to stick in the public mind was the cut from

50 per cent to 45 per cent in the top rate of income tax. It marked a

tilt to the tax-cutting right that he hopes will build his support on

the Thatcherite wing of the Tory party.

 

 

15.52 Podcast time.

 

15.48 Our colleagues over at FT Alphaville have been going through the
Budget documents and have found the official issuance plans for the
Osborne super-long bond.
The question, it seems, is not how long the bond should be, but how
big…

 

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