IT WOULD be unwise to expect the last budget before a general election to be anything other than a political event. The occasion is for tax cuts (which tend to be followed by tax rises promptly after the election) and other crowd-pleasing giveaways. Roy Jenkins, a Labour chancellor of the exchequer, bravely tried to break the mould in 1970 with a sober, "non-election" budget. The voters rewarded him by booting his party out of office. By contrast, George Osborne, today's chancellor, has excelled in this ignoble tradition.