Friday's papers

The budget continues to dominate the front pages.

Britain's new age of austerity says the Independent

A bleak picture of a future Britain once again shamed by its public services was conjured up yesterday as the true cost of fixing the nation's finances emerged from the fog of Treasury statistics. Whatever the political furore over the 50p tax rate, most of the burden of plugging the £1.3 trillion hole in the nation's coffers over the next decade will fall on the public services, says the respected and independent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

The Guardian says that ministers will be forced to make the most savage spending cuts since the 1970s, a respected economic thinktank predicted yesterday, confounding Alistair Darling's attempt to deflect claims that his budget has ushered in a decade of austerity.

The Telegraph has a picture of a baby and says that the child will be 23 before we are out of the mess

The unprecedented burden of public debt built up by Gordon Brown will not be brought under control for nearly a quarter of a century, economists have said.

The Times reports that hidden in the small print of Alistair Darling’s Budget are plans to tax anyone earning more than £150,000 on payments their employer makes into their company pension

The Mail looks at another problem for the country as it reports that as many as 40,000 drinkers are dying every year because the Government has utterly failed to deal with Britain's alcohol problem.

The paper adds that

Doctors and academics lined up to condemn round-the-clock drinking, brought in by Labour, and the availability of cheap alcohol in supermarkets.

Finally the Express identifies anothedr potential problem as the paper reports that France wants Britain to sign a deal allowing thousands of migrants to flood into the UK.

Calais mayor Natacha Bouchart’s controversial plan to scrap passport controls was announced as migrants in the port staged an angry demo yesterday, waving placards written in flawless English.