THE INDEPENDENT: The Chilling Message From Zimbabwe’s Church Leaders

The paper runs a dramatic quote in red and black letters which says: “If nothing is done to help the people of Zimbabwe, we shall soon be witnessing genocide similar to that in Kenya and Rwanda.” Story here.

DAILY MIRROR: The Lost Boy

Fears were mounting for a vanished disabled boy whose devoted mother was found dead in woods near her home in Worcester. Story here.

DAILY MAIL: The Petrol “Profiteers”

Consumer groups accused petrol firms of profiteering after raising prices by up to 5p a litre in 48 hours, ahead of a planned strike at Grangemouth refinery, the paper said. Story here.

THE GUARDIAN: 1bln Pounds Package Would End Tax Row, Say Rebels

Frank Field, the architect of Labour’s 10p tax rebellion, said ministers must provide up to 1bln pounds in compensation for those affected by the changes before local elections next week, if they are to defuse the row, the paper said. But he insisted he did not want to bring the government to its knees. Story here.

DAILY EXPRESS: Shopping Bill Up 15 Pounds a Week

Soaring food costs are adding 15 pounds a week to supermarket shopping bills, research showed, in the latest hammer blow to hard-pressed family budgets, the paper said. Story here.

THE SUN: Wills Gets Chopper Out at Sandringham

The paper claims an exclusive on Prince William, who recently received his flying wings, taking another joyride in an RAF helicopter — this time over the Queen’s Sandringham home. The paper had earlier said he had landed a helicopter in the garden of his girlfriend. Story here.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: 800 Pounds-a-Year Rise in Family Grocery Bill

The paper used the same research on food prices to say families are having to spend almost 800 pounds more on their annual grocery bills as the highest rate of food inflation for a generation drives up supermarket prices. Story here.

THE TIMES: Era of Cheap Food Ends as Prices Surge

Experts warn the prices of basic foods will rise steeply again because of acute shortages in commodity markets, the paper said. Story here.

THE FINANCIAL TIMES: RBS Chief Faces Calls to Name Exit Date

Sir Fred Goodwin faces demands from leading investors to step down as chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland within a year after the bank launched a 12 bln pounds rights issue, the paper said. Story here.

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.

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.