Coverage of yesterday's Budget dominates the front pages.

The papers agree that Gordon Brown used the announcement to unveil a raft of measures aimed at wooing potential Labour voters at the forthcoming general election.

In what was his ninth Budget, 50 days before the expected general election date, the chancellor set out help for pensioners, first-time home buyers, the working poor and motorists.

Labour MPs loudly cheered plans to double the threshold for stamp duty on house purchases and to give most pensioners a £200 "one-off" payment to help with their council tax bills alongside free bus travel from 2006.

Brown declared that he had struck a balance between "tax cuts that are affordable, investments that are essential and stability that is paramount".

For business, the chancellor pledged to cut the number of inspections by a million and slash red tape by eradicating 650,000 forms a year.

He also promised bosses that they would have a well educated workforce, claiming that all would eventually remain in full-time education or training until 18.

But he raised an extra £1.1bn by squeezing oil companies for earlier tax payments.

Brown announced he would progressively raise the inheritance tax threshold from £260,000 to £300,000 by 2007, leaving 94 per cent of estates exempt.

And he insisted he would meet all his rules on borrowing and debt and rejected claims from bodies such as the International Monetary Fund that his tax revenue forecasts were over-optimistic.

"We are meeting both our fiscal rules, both in this economic cycle and next," the chancellor told MPs.

He said those who forecast recession and who questioned his spending plans had been "consistently wrong".

But Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, said the government's spending plans meant that it would be forced to put taxes up if Labour was re-elected.

"This Budget is not about what's good for our country. It's all about the interests of the Labour Party," Howard said.

"This is the vote now, pay later Budget," he said in the Commons.

Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, said Brown had not addressed the "ticking bomb" of council tax revaluation.

"The sensible thing to do is to introduce local taxation based on people's ability to pay," he said.

The Liberal Democrat leader also suggested that the chancellor was not being straight with people on tax and spending.