People of Ostentia, as the newly appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer I hereby announce the next budget. It is this government's intention to balance the budget, which will require an increase in the basic rate of taxation. I understand that this may be unpopular, but it is the only responsible course of action. Critics of this budget may argue that the nations reserves should be raided in order to fuel government spending and keep taxation down. However, such a course of action would be disasterous: the restoration of economic performance to pre-slump levels can only realistically be seen as a long term goal. With this being the case, it would be completely wrong to attempt to fund permanent spending commitments with an unsustainable rate of temporary funding. Taxes must rise, and government spending must be held back, possibly even reduced. Furthermore, it should also be noted that one of the commonly suggested causes of our current economic difficulties is that financial institutions were irresponsible with their finances, taking foolish risks and spending more than they earned. In such a climate of irresponsible financing, it is vital that the government is seen to lead by example and that confidence in our nation's finances remains solid. That is why this course of action must be taken. The road ahead of us is a hard one - but for the sake of future generations, we must take it. The future cannot be mortgaged for the sake of the present. I humbly ask parliament to accept this budget.

Firstly, the reserves were at 44 after my last budget. Where did 5 units go?

Also, I will be voting for the tax rise. While I believe that it would be possible to cope without a tax rise, I appreciate that it will make it easier for the government if there is one, and so when the government acts reasonably I will not stand in their way.

I am glad the woman next to you has an afro. Where is yours?

Minor thing to point out (which I couldn't have in the deliberation stage as it's only just happened) is that the economy is now at 65%...

You missed a few sections out of the last budget (probably not your fault - the format has changed several times and there are many out of date formats hovering around) and as such it wasn't clear whether or not your figure for the reserves included those being spent, although I see now that they did not.

The issue has now been corrected.

On a side note, I would like to thank you for your support for the budget, and I would also like to state for the record (now that the cabinet records have been released) that I had no wish to force you from your role as chancellor: as it turns out, none of us had been keeping an eye on the revolving door topic so I was merely trying to rescue the nations finances from what falsely appeared to be a negligent chancellor.