Just as British companies were announcing all-time record profit levels, Brown chose to cut corporation tax for the third time since Labour came back to power, this time by 2p in the pound.

No wonder share prices jumped in the City following Brown's budget speech! Smelling rich pickings, speculators rushed to buy shares and get their cut.

At face value, a 2% reduction in corporation tax may not sound much to write home about. In fact, however, it represents huge additional profits for big shareholders.

For Britain's six big banks alone, this tax cut amounts to an £800m handout from the state. And no-one will expect the bank sharks to show any gratitude, for instance, by reducing the punitive charges they impose on the rest of us. Nor will they suspend the rising number of repossession orders against people who get into trouble repaying their loans.

When the country's 100 largest companies are taken together, Brown's tax cut means that in the coming year, this government will be presenting the 10,000 or so big shareholders who control these companies, with a £4bn tax-free bounty.

But will this bounty stop these companies from carrying on cutting jobs left, right and centre, instead of using their huge profits to create new jobs? No way! This Monday's announcement of a merger between construction giants Wimpey and Taylor-Woodrow speaks for itself: the directors of these two highly profitable companies hailed the event because it would allow them to cut 700 jobs.

In fact, this £4bn handout is 4 times the amount that Brown has pencilled in for the nearly 3 million children living below the poverty line!

Yes, for Blair's and Brown's Labour government, one wealthy shareholder needs as much "help" out of taxpayers' money (that is, mostly out of our pay packets) as 1,200 impoverished children!