IT’S the first full-on Tory Budget for almost 20 years. The tattered remnants of the Labour Party in Scotland will of course complain along with the rest of us complain about its unfairness, meanness and malignity. Oh, if only there had been a way to avoid it entirely and protect Scotland’s poor and marginalised, the low-paid and the disabled from the onslaught of the Conservatives’ ideologically driven misery.

Oh wait. Yeah, there was. And it was thrown away in a worthless vow and English Votes for Everyone’s Laws. Still glad you voted No then?

Those of us on the left often decry Conservative Budgets as being unprincipled. Labour share this propensity too. Traditionally, they’re the ones who have shouted it the loudest, and they’re experts on being unprincipled, so we should listen to them on that one. However, in this instance the accusation is unfair and untrue, because Conservative Budgets are deeply principled, and Osborne’s Budget has faithfully adhered to a deeply traditional Tory sense of principle.

In fact, Labour, in its attempts to make itself electable south of the Border, looks as though it’s about to adopt this principle. It’s just a pity then that the principle is that the rich must be rewarded and the poor must be punished.

Being principled is not the same as being moral. Genghis Khan was a highly principled man. His favourite was that you gave him all your horses, your cities, your gold, and your family as slaves or he’d impale you on a stake. And if you replace the stake with a benefits sanction, then you’ve pretty much got Iain Duncan Smith. The only real difference is that IDS doesn’t have the hair to grow a topknot. The Tories are determined to teach the poor to stand on their own two feet, by hacking their limbs off. And in that respect they are very much like Genghis Khan.

Osborne has cut subsidies for renewable energy, but has boosted the amount to be spent on roads. Private transport gets subsidised, public transport doesn’t. So no help for Scotland’s struggling renewable energy sector then. After all, they want to keep taunting us about the low oil price: they certainly don’t want us developing other sources of energy production.

But the main feature of this Budget is the billions of pounds in cuts to benefits, the burden of which will fall on the poorest, the disabled, the people without the resources to cope, while at the same time inheritance tax has been abolished on houses worth a million and tax breaks given to those who are already comfortably off. Because it’s terribly unfair that deceased, rich people have to give a portion of their wealth back to the society that made them rich, and so deprive little Annabella Doublebarrelled-Surname of her Genghis Khan pony. It’s appalling that people on high wages should have to pay higher rates of taxation.

So if mummy and daddy are planning to leave you over a million quid when they pop their well-heeled clogs, you can give a little cheer. If you’re earning £40,000 a year you can now have an extra skiing holiday while unpaid carers try to live on £60 a week.

It’s only fair: unpaid carers don’t need extra skiing holidays, because they can’t get out of the house as there’s no money in social-care budgets for respite care.

BUT we mustn’t complain. The cuts to the benefits budget were slightly less than the direst fears expressed beforehand, so thankfully the Tories aren’t going to hack all the limbs off the poor and the disabled after all. Just their legs. And their genitalia, because they certainly don’t want them breeding either. There will be no tax credits for third children after 2016. Osborne’s done what even Thatcher didn’t dare to do – cut the link between benefits and the number of people in a household. The only boost we’re going to see as a result of these changes is in the number of people who go to foodbanks.

The Tories hold that work is the only route out of poverty. Osborne announced a new national living wage of £7.20 per hour, rising to £9 by 2020, but Osborne being Osborne, there’s bound to be a catch. The catch is that the minimum wage has been rebranded as the living wage, so now poverty campaigners can’t use the term living wage to highlight the gap between the minimum wage and a wage you can actually live on, and the new national living wage falls a long way short of that. The actual living wage is currently £7.85.

Every previous Budget has unravelled in the following days, so it’s likely that this one will be no different. A fist-pumping Iain Duncan Smith looked like he was experiencing the rapture as the news was announced. Beware of an Osborne booring git. There isn’t time to do the sums yet, but I’d wager that the gains made in lower-paid income by the increased minimum wage are offset by cuts to tax credits, and the entire announcement is a smoke-and-mirrors charade designed to trip up the Labour party.

Some of the direst poverty is experienced by people who are in work. Bent on creating a low-wage economy with part-time jobs and no job security, there’s nothing in Osborne’s Budget that’s going to change the bleak prospects faced by our young people. Oh, if only there was a way we could escape that – right? Still, I’m sure you get the picture by now. Yes voters are feeling a mixture of despair and smug “I told you” so at this juncture. It’s not much comfort, but it’s all anyone’s got. We’ve got another five years of this.

But it’s not all bad. Shops can stay open for longer in England, so people there can spend longer going shopping for all the things they can’t afford. The Keep Sunday Special people are up in arms about this, as it clearly says in the Bible that thou shalt not open retail premises on the Sabbath if it hath more than 250 square metres.

This is our future, Scotland’s future, a future of powerlessness in the face of Tory economic policies which penalise the poor, and it stretches before us into an infinity of gloom and despondency – unless we do something about it. That’s the lesson we learn from this Budget. And that something sure as hell isn’t voting for a Labour Party that’s in thrall to the same dismal prospect. They want us to live in the USA, but without the large portions in restaurants, the nice weather, or the written constitution. Just the low wages, the insecurity, and the rampant and growing militarisation. Benefits spending bad, spending on weapons good. Welcome to Tory Britain.

REACTION

George Kerevan: A merciless attacks on the poor ... to the sound of cheers

John Swinney: The National Living Wage hides an attack on people in low-wage jobs

Equality: This Budget continues the project which impoverishes women

Foodbanks: ‘Economic security’ is an alien concept to many of those who use our services

Inheritance tax: Making a system more complicated when it needs simplicity

Disability: Why we are sceptical about Osborne's promise

Unemployment: The National Living Wage is a slightly less low minimum wage

Child poverty: Child poverty ... Measures will do precious little for the poorest families in Scotland

Housing: Pushing those already suffering further into poverty