It would be churlish to admit there wasn't some welcome news.
The increase in personal income tax allowance to £10,000 from April 2014 will help most in work retain more of their wages. It is nevertheless disappointing however that he won't commit to increasing this further and work towards removing all earning the minimum wage from paying income tax altogether.
The increase of £2.95/week in the basic state pension is also welcome. However, this is hardly news - following the changes announced in 2012 the increase was already guaranteed; the announcement was akin to being cheered to the rafters for declaring tomorrow to be Friday.
We also, finally, had confirmation of the married couples and civil partners tax break to be introduced from 2014. Granted, this only qualifies as good news if you are married or in a civil partnership - if you are single, cohabiting, or widowed this announcement might well be considered a waste of £700million (which, don't forget, we don't have so needs to be borrowed).
Oh, erm, this is rather embarrassing. That seems to be all the good news I can find.
What we also found out is that, despite the much publicised government announcement of a £50 saving, the average energy bill will still rise by £70 this winter. Already exorbitant rail fails will, on average, rise by inflation (ie by more than your wages are rising). Fuel duty will once again be frozen, but that is hardly a help if you already cannot afford to fill and run your car.
Of particularly concerning news for the north east is the announced increase in state retirement age, to 68 in the mid-2030s and to 69 in the late-2040s. Given the Healthy Life Expectancy for the North East is 59.7 years for men and 60.2 years for women - the lowest of any region of the UK - and the disproportionately high number of employees engaged in heavy manual labour in the region, increasing numbers of us will be forced to, literally, work until we drop.
Although it has been patently obvious for some time now, this government of millionaires really does not comprehend how increasingly difficult the average family is finding it to get by. For 40 out of the 41 months of this government, inflation has outpaced the rise in incomes.
Put another way, for 40 out of 41 months of this government we have been getting poorer. Much poorer.
Indeed, figures publicised by Labour today show that the average household is £1,600/year worse off than when this government came into power. (NB I use this figure with a caveat: as is Labour's way, this figure is incredibly simplistic as it only compares inflation directly with wages and fails to take into account changes to tax allowances, benefits, etc.).
What is clearer than ever is that this country, and particularly the North East, needs support and a change of government priorities. What is clearer than ever is that the Conservatives and Lib Dems have no intention of delivering that change.
What is also clear is that Labour can never, ever be trusted with our economy again. Although the ConDem coalition have proved to be poor stewards, it would be sheer lunacy to throw Labour the keys to the economy they crashed so spectacularly.
Only one party pledges to cut your fuel bills, not just marginally slow the rate of their increase; only one party pledges to cut taxes and business rates across the board for every small and medium sized business in the country; only one party pledges to put the poor of our own region ahead of those in foreign countries.
And that party is UKIP.
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