Gordon Brown returns to Westminster today facing a host of negative headlines describing him as a ditherer who has failed to make his mark as prime minister.

The Telegraph reckons Brown’s “failure to define what he stands for is provoking despair even among his loyal supporters” and charts his evolution from a dominant figure in politics under Tony Blair to “Incapability Gordon Brown”.

While Foreign Secretary David Miliband asserts that Brown has “strong values and convictions”, bets are already on for who would be odds-on favourite to take over.

Brown’s cut in the basic tax rate, announced in the 2007 budget, was to be paid for, at least in part, by the abolition of the 10 percent tax rate, but the plan has now turned into a “calculated tax ploy that mutated into a monster”, according to the Independent.

The olive branch offered by Chancellor Alistair Darling to quell the rebellion has prompted outrage, the paper says. It quotes Frank Field, the former minister leading demands for a package of social help for the poorest earners, as saying the measures offered were insufficient. “The talk about bringing forward a package this year or maybe next year just will not do,” Field said.

“If the rebels prevail, Brown could be ousted in days” is The Guardian’s take on Brown’s woes. “For Labour to have scheduled the vote on the 10p tax rate days ahead of the local elections, and with London on a knife edge, seems an act of incompetence so breathtaking that I’m left wondering whether it’s a Baldrick-like cunning plan,” columnist Jackie Ashley writes.

But there is some caution against rushing into finding a new leader. Tribune’s Joan Smith draws parallels to hapless former Prime Minister Anthony Eden: “As the Tories discovered in 1955, some people are not temperamentally suited to the top job and that will almost certainly be posterity’s verdict on Gordon Brown,” she writes. “And while it’s amusing to watch all the people who used to talk up the PM-in-waiting as they scramble to explain their man’s failures, it does leave Labour with a very big problem” — who would be best to replace him?

The dust has settled on Alistair Darling’s first Budget and consumers have been given little reason for celebration. The Chancellor, though announcing various measures designed to increase housing affordability, has done nothing to help the masses.

There were no moves to give a helping hand to hard-pressed householders, already struggling amid rocketing mortgage, food, fuel and tax costs, to ride out an impending recession. Darling did pledge to introduce a savings scheme targeted at low and moderate earners, often least able to save: the “saving gateway” will attract government matching for savings over the duration of people’s participation in the scheme. This has the potential to introduce up to eight million people into mainstream savings in the UK who otherwise might not make thrift a priority.

But the level of take-up of such a scheme, amid record personal debt levels and huge pressure on people’s purse-strings, is debatable. Other such government schemes to encourage the nation to save have hardly been a runaway success: think stakeholder pensions and child-trust funds (CTF). One fifth of parents currently let their CTF expire — the government can’t even give money away.

Individual savings accounts (ISAs), on the other hand, have flourished. They are one of the government’s true success stories. More than one in three adults hold an ISA and almost 215 billion pounds has been invested — making them far more popular than other savings initiatives.

Yet, the limits that savers can squirrel away into these tax-efficient vehicles have sorely failed to keep pace with inflation. The allowance will increase to 7,200 pounds from 7,000 pounds (3,600 pounds of which can be held in cash, up from 3,000 pounds) in the coming tax year — but that means the total threshold has risen by less than 3 percent since the accounts were introduced almost a decade ago. “Failing to increase ISA allowances further is a poke in the eye of savers who need encouragement to put away money,” says David Kuo, head of personal finance at Fool.co.uk.

Other changes to the ISA regime mean people will be able to switch cash holdings into stocks and shares — but the reverse will not be possible. And, once the switch has been made, there’s no turning back. The new rules raise the spectre of “another ghastly financial scandal”, according to Cliff Husband, research director at AWD Chase de Vere. “People could switch their ISA cash savings into investments unaware that they can’t switch back. This looks like another poorly delivered initiative from the government; it would be far fairer to all taxpayers if the switch between cash and investment within an ISA could be easily reversed.”

On pensions, too, there is little to encourage saving. While scrapping the 10 pence income tax rate and reducing the basic rate by 2 pence has done next to nothing to increase people’s take home pay, it has reduced the amount of tax relief they’ll get on their pension savings. The Chancellor has maintain higher level tax relief on gifts to charities, so why not for pensions?

“Frankly, while politicians have gold-plated final salary pensions, they can tinker with regulations which will have no real benefit for real workers,” says AWD’s marketing director Martyn Laverick. “If MPs did not have such generous pensions and they faced the same issues the majority of people in this country face about their pensions we would see more decisive action.”

So, it seems, consumers must face the headwinds and try to ride out the storm alone. From today, they should be tightening their belts.

By Francesca Lagerberg, head of the national tax office, Grant Thornton

Most Budgets have all the attraction of being slapped in the face with a wet kipper and sadly this one is unlikely to reverse the trend. As expected, from today up goes the cost of booze (4p on a pint) and fags (11p on a packet). Also for those who like driving larger less-green new cars there is a “showroom” tax coming in from 2009 that could cost them around 950 pounds.

However, for the entrepreneur there was a little cheer. After strong representations from business, Chancellor Alistair Darling has deferred the “income shifting” rules that were due to start from this April. These were a direct attack on family-owned businesses that include lower tax paying family members who take out dividends or profits but make a less significant contribution to the business. A case last year (Jones v Garnett) went against the government and it was looking to legislate to get the result it wanted. The proposals were wide-ranging and ill-targeted. A deferral will hopefully allow time to revisit this whole approach.

The working family got several name-checks in the Budget speech and this broadly amounts to an increase in child benefit (20 pounds per week for the first child) and the child element of child tax credit, but this will not take effect until April 2009.

There was no further change to the capital gains tax (CGT) regime so that from April 6 all individuals will be paying at a flat rate of 18 percent with the only hope of reducing the charge being a special entrepreneurs’ relief that has stringent qualifying conditions, but may help the smaller business to take their charge down to an effective rate of 10 percent. However, some others clearly benefit under the new regime. For example, those looking to sell a buy-to-let property after April will find that the new rules help them as the best tax rate they would get under the existing legislation would be 24 percent.

For non-domiciled individuals, the Chancellor provided further details on the radical changes taking effect from April 6. If they want to continue to get the tax advantages of being non-domiciled in the UK after then they will have to pay 30,000 pounds for the privilege once they are resident here for seven out of the past 10 years. However, for those who would not remotely be able to pay such a high levy remitting just small amounts of foreign income (2,000 pounds) will not be caught. This is a slight increase on the original 1,000 pound proposal. There is also a new test of where you were at midnight to work out what days you were really present in the UK, which may be more useful to internationally mobile workers than the rules we heard of last October at the pre-Budget report.

So, overall Darling’s first Budget was short on drama, but long on minor detail. A massive 207 pages of back-up notes support the Budget Red Book. For most people this event will provide little to cheer, but equally little to passionately dislike.