Shares dropped just 19 points at close following last week’s Pre-Budget Report.
They then rose on Thursday before surging on opening on Friday.
If that was perceived as an indication that the City was satisfied by the chancellor’s policies, it has been since dashed by the outpouring of condemnation from analysts and experts.
They are angry that the PBR did nothing to outline just how the Government would be tackling the £178 million national debt.
According to the Sunday Times, actions like ring-fencing 95% of the health budget from real cuts, guaranteeing ‘front-line’ spending on schools and police numbers and giving half-a-million extra children free school meals meant that, far from spending cuts, the chancellor had actually added £15 billion to his spending totals.
Instead of facing up to realities, Alistair Darling seemed content to deal in relative frivolities such as a scrappage scheme for central heating boilers and a cut in tax on bingo.
To most watchers, this wasn’t so much an economic budget as a political one.
For fleets, increasing the cost to employees of receiving free fuel for private use should provide an opportunity for companies to stop this expensive and unnecessary practice.
Meanwhile, drivers of company electric cars – who now pay 9% benefit-in-kind tax – will not have to pay BiK from April for the next five years.
This is part of the Government’s bid to encourage the take up of electric vehicles.
In addition, firms that add electric vans to their fleets will now qualify for 100% writing-down allowance in year one.
Both policies make electric vehicles more attractive to companies and drivers.
But they will have no impact on sales until an electric infrastructure is in place – and for that the Government is relying on the private sector.