Commenting on yesterday’s Budget Alok Sharma, the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Reading West, said: “Thanks to Gordon Brown, the pied piper of Labour’s decade of debt, we have the worst public finances of all the G20 countries and the vast majority of Labour tax rises affect the many and not the few. Lower and middle income earners in Reading and across the country are going to be paying for the huge debts announced in this Budget with people facing higher taxes on everything from national insurance payments, to driving to work, to a pint at the end of the day. This budget has done little to help Reading families, Reading pensioners and Reading's many small and medium sized businesses which are the back bone of our local economy. Labour has clearly failed the country and it is time for a change of government.”