KEY POINTS:
If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well, the old saying has it. Somebody should have told Michael Cullen. The tax cuts unveiled in Thursday's Budget won't help Labour's electoral prospects. If anything, they have probably dug the party deeper into a hole.
Most people will have laughed, albeit sourly, when they saw how much the famously tight-fisted Finance Minister was giving back. Certainly it would not be very amusing to John Smith, the notional citizen presented in the briefing notes supplied by Cullen's office. Mr Smith, who earns $45,000 a year - $865 a week - ends up $16 a week better off.
That's enough money to protect Cullen from having this described as a "chewing gum budget" like his 2005 effort, but it is not enough for much more.
Labour is no less exposed than it was before the Budget to being outbid by National, who seem determined to do anything they can to avoid announcing any policy at all until they absolutely have to.
But he may yet have the last laugh. National, having derided this level of relief, is committed to outdoing it. And Cullen's figures provide for a half-billion-a-year cut in public spending.
Once that begins to bite, he will doubtless be happy that a National finance minister is sitting in the Beehive, taking the flak. With petrol heading for $2.50 a litre and prices rising, this could be a good election to lose.
