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It's Budget day - politics or economics?
A bit of both, because the Budget, due to delivered later today, still sets the financial ground rules for the next year or more.

The big, and little, accountancy firms, will be setting out their take on it and, no doubt, making even more money trying to help Britain's businesses keep some of their money out of the revenue's hands.

HMG needs the money because PM Gordon Brown, in his previous role as Chancellor, spent all the cash he'd saved up in his first few years by overspending on the National Health Service, tax credits, education and spectacularly expensive public private partnerships.

So Alistair Darling doesn't have lot to play with (and you can bet that Gordon has been dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's anyway, just in case Alistair was thinking about doing something radical).

He is expected to resort to a policy of masterly inactivity; putting up booze a bit, promising "green" taxes on BMW X5s and postponing the increased charges on non-domiciles.

On the X5 question, it seems that car showrooms and ads are going to be required to display the running costs of cars over their lifetime, health warnings in effect.

He's not expected to alter or even postpone the new rate of 18% capital gains tax (up from 10%) on people selling their small businesses, something which has caused a flurry of activity among adland's minnows in the last couple of months.

But Budgets are about politics rather more than economics these days. Gordon Brown always managed to provide some crowd-pleasing bits, leaving everyone to count the cost in the small print a few days later.

Has Darling got the balls to resist this?

Let's hope so (although don't count your cojones). Most people want a gimmick-free Budget that lets businesses get on with it, because lots of them are going to go bust in the next year or so anyway, even as things stand.

One thing he could do, which was widely advertised a couple of weeks ago and then seemingly undermined by a ferocious lobbying campaign, is slap a "windfall" tax on the energy companies.

Will he do it and win a few votes? Probably not.

But there'll be a surprise or two somewhere, and we'll bring those to you in a special report later today.

Fed bites the mortgage bullet
Northern Rock must be catching, as the US Federal Reserve yesterday announced that it would underwrite $200bn of mortgages, putting our little local difficulty in some kind of context.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones roared like a lion, rising a record 416 points and this morning the Nikkei in Tokyo and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong surged too.

The FTSE 100 opened up 60 points higher today before falling back a bit.

The Fed isn't actually nationalising mortgage lenders but it's said it will swap mortgage-backed securities (most mortgages are parcelled up these days, even yours dear reader) for Treasury bonds, US Government debt.

The mortgages in question are currently (and many people think optimistically) triple A rated, so they're not your sub-prime nonsense. But if they go sour the US government will pay all the same.

Banks can therefore get them off their balance sheets and the Fed hopes that this will persuade them to lend to each other again, and at less usurious rates.

But was the market reaction overdone? Probably, but it's now devastatingly obvious that the Fed (which is expected to cut interest rates again soon) and the US Government (the Republicans have an election to win, don't forget) are determined to drag the US economy kicking and screaming out of recession.

The Fed will also have noticed the severe cash problems at big private equity operator Carlyle and the rumours about banks in trouble (Bear Sterns is the favourite candidate).

It's going to do its level best to ensure that this doesn't happen and that should underpin the markets.

Will our own dear Bank of England grasp the nettle and cut interest rates too?

It will if Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling have anything to do with it.

Lord Bell rings up a profit
PR Week had an interesting piece the other day, saying that Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe had approached Bell Pottinger to handle its "PR".

Lord Bell, boss of Chime Communications in which Bell Pottinger resides, is known in some mean-minded quarters as the despot's best friend (previous clients have included General Pinochet, the pre-Mandela government of South Africa and even Margaret Thatcher) but the Zimbabwe account evidently proved a bit rich even for Bell Pottinger.

Shame really.

But Chime seems to be thriving, revealing 2007 profits of £13m, with margins up to 16.3%, which must have impressed even 25% shareholder Sir Martin Sorrell.

Since WPP bailed out Chime a few years ago the company has gone from strength to strength and Lord Bell, with characteristic chutzpah, decried talk of recession as the vapourings of "gloom mongers" as he announced his record results.

Chime will never be one of the giants of the communications world (and will probably sell to WPP at some stage, perhaps when Bell retires in a few decades' time).

But it's good to see an independent communications company hacking it in the markets.

Stephen Foster is a former news editor of ±±¾©Èü³µpk10, former editor of Marketing Week and Evening Standard ad columnist. He is a partner in Editorial Partnership and writes the blog and Politics of the Media for Brand Republic.