Leader: From omnishambles to Osborne omnigamble IT WAS indeed too much to hope for that George Osborne would have used yesterday's Budget to embrace, finally, the Plan B demanded of him on a daily basis by a swelling chorus of eminent economists. Once that reality was established yesterday, and the parameters of a fiscally neutral Budget were set, it was clear the Chancellor had left himself very little room for ­manoeuvre. Cornered by his ­humiliating failure to meet his own targets on growth and ­borrowing, Mr Osborne instead decided to take a gamble. Five years on from the financial crisis, Britain should by now have been starting to see the encouraging green shoots of recovery. Having sucked up the pain of austerity, we should have been ready for our reward in the shape of an economy beginning to get back to normal. Unfortunately for us all - and especially unfortunately for the Chancellor - this simply has not materialised. It is easy to tell the parts of a Chancellor's Budget Day statement that dwell on aspects that make less than comfortable reading. The politician tucks in their chin, lowers their voice, and starts to mumble. There was a great deal of that yesterday, given just how woeful the predictions for the economy have been, and just how damning the statistics are on failure to meet the government's own targets on a range of telling indicators. Undaunted, Mr Osborne's ­response to this predicament yesterday contained a number of perfectly useful measures that had logic and coherence, and were generally to be welcomed. With his political strategist's hat on, Mr Osborne threw in a few shameless crowd-pleasers - most obviously the cut in duty on a pint of beer. The sum of money involved is, for the coalition, cash well spent in generating a little bit of wellbeing in a weary country that sees very little to celebrate at the moment. Good soundbite. But the moves of more substance were promising. Cutting employers" National Insurance payments is a sound move. Help with childcare was another welcome development with obvious potential for getting parents back into the workforce. The corporation tax cut, too, was a no-nonsense statement of intent on economic position. Encouraging housebuilding with loans for deposits was also a positive move. Mr Osborne's big gambit, however, was to use the housing market as the engine of recovery. It proposes a lending boost where the government takes on and carries some of the risk. It is bold with the potential for ­actually being reckless. There is a respectable argument that says banks have been too unwilling to lend of late, and that this must be addressed if a recovery is to be achieved. But it is to be remembered banks are cautious with good reason. Should our government be taking on risks that banks refuse? It would be wise to remind ourselves just what got us into this mess. Mr Osborne's plan clearly conjures up images of the American subprime mortgage calamity. Its building blocks were cheap money; a carelessness about the borrower's willingness to honour the debt; and a cavalier attitude to the moral peril this represented. People were desperate to live the good life and the banks fell over themselves to fund it. The subprime debacle was the ultimate mutation of a global, or at least western, financial system consisting of cheap money and over-leveraged, over-extended banks that ignored prudent risk judgment - and over-credited individuals - and left the governments of many nations with ­extremely heavy cans to carry. Most experts in the property market agree that the brutal "stabilisation" of property prices in recent years represented a necessary correction to a market that was spinning out of control. But now the government is again going to expose the taxpayer to risk in the housing market by intervening. That is a policy that could have tremendous potential downsides, and appears to be an imprudent desperate bid to ­kick-start the economy. This is not the action of a responsible ­government. It will be interesting to see if banks can retain their newly-recovered caution, responsibility and integrity and resist risk even it if lies with others, but let's not forget the government is a major shareholder in two large ones. After last year's Budget, it took a few days for its mis-steps and pratfalls to become fully clear, and for it to be revealed as the ­infamous "omnishambles" that will haunt Mr Osborne to the end of his political days. This time, the defining policy of the Budget was in plain sight from the moment Mr Osborne uttered it. The Chancellor has placed all his casino chips on one square, throwing caution to the wind in one last, big and extraordinarily risky spin of the roulette wheel. This time it is not an ombishambles, it is an omnigamble.