IT was dubbed the sweet and sour Budget even before George Osborne had sat down.

What a difference a few months make. Back in November, the fiscal sun was shining; so much so that the Office for Budget Responsibility suggested the UK’s financial position was firming up, borrowing costs were down and tax receipts were rolling in.

It meant the Chancellor had a £27 billion windfall to play with. So he could smooth over the political embarrassment of the child tax credits defeat by scrapping the planned £4.4bn cuts altogether while also doling out billions more to beef up Britain’s infrastructure.

But with the slowdown in China hitting global market confidence and the eurozone consumed by a mixture of economic slowdown and the uncertainties of the refugee crisis, the bubble of optimism has burst and the money Mr Osborne once could bank on has disappeared.

Yet having missed two targets on the welfare cap and getting debt down as a ratio of GDP, the would-be premier was not going to let go of his cherished surplus. So, in order to ensure he can have his £10bn bonanza by the time of the next General Election, more cuts have been pencilled in, some £3.5bn, to help smooth Mr Osborne’s run towards No 10 in 2020.

As always, much of the Budget had been leaked beforehand – transport investment, the help to save scheme for young people and making all schools in England free from local authority control – but a rabbit was expected and it duly arrived with an announcement on sugary drinks.

With his theme of “putting the next generation first”, the Chancellor announced a new levy on the soft drinks industry to help tackle childhood obesity. It will be calibrated on the volume of sugar-sweetened drinks companies produce and is expected to raise £520m in the first year. The money will go towards encouraging more sports in schools. As it is an educational matter, there will be a knock-on benefit for the Scottish Government running into millions of pounds.

There will be a two-year grace period before the levy kicks in and, if the industry reduces the sugar content, then, of course, the revenue to the Treasury will fall. But sources made clear if companies do what the Government wants, it will find the money for school sports from somewhere else.

Usually in Budget speeches, Scotland gets but a fleeting mention. This time it was centre stage as Mr Osborne unveiled – after much pressure, it has to be said – a £1bn tax boost for the North Sea oil and gas industry.

But will it have any impact? The Office for Budget Responsibility’s remarks on the sector are grim reading. The revenue, which once brought in £11bn a year not that long ago, is now forecast to be negative for this year and for the years up to 2020.

The Chancellor could not resist making a political point and, looking over to the SNP benches, said the UK Government was only in a position to give a helping hand to the North Sea because of the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom.

"None of this support would have been remotely affordable if, in just eight days' time, Scotland had broken away from the rest of the UK as the Nationalists had wanted,” he declared.

"Their own audit of public finances confirms that they would have struggled from the start with a fiscal crisis, under the burden of the highest deficit in the western world. Thankfully, the Scottish people decided that we are better together in one United Kingdom."

As Tory MPs cheered, SNP MPs shook their heads and bit their lips.

By upping the threshold for the 40p higher income tax band to £45,000, Mr Osborne has also opened up an intriguing prospect that come 2017 tax in England will be different to that in Scotland.

The raising of the threshold is an effective tax cut to those on the higher rate but Nicola Sturgeon – whose government will have new tax powers next year - appears to have set her face against it, making clear she does not believe, in these straitened times, that middle to high earners should be getting an effective tax cut. Over time, it could be worth several hundred pounds, particularly as the Tories want to raise the threshold to £50,000 by 2020. Will the First Minister hold her line?

Another intriguing aspect of the Budget was the political context ie the EU referendum.

The Chancellor, whose political future, like that of David Cameron’s hangs on the outcome of the June 23 vote, used his economic statement to bolster the case to remain in the EU.

He quoted the OBR’s report, which warned that Brexit could “’usher in an extended period of uncertainty’” and could have “’negative implications for activity via business and consumer confidence’”.

It was now the turn of Eurosceptic Tories to roll their eyes as Labour and SNP MPs goaded them.

But the references confirmed this was a very political Budget predicated once again on numbers that Mr Osborne hopes will mean that, having survived the EU poll, he can succeed his Downing Street neighbour and the Tories will be set fair to keep power in 2020.