David Parkin on enjoying the Budget, naming firms and one of the best corporate dinners in Yorkshire

HERE is something I don’t say very often: I quite enjoyed the Budget.

Plenty of positive economic figures and a focus on supporting Britain’s “doers, makers and savers” – something too many politicians pay lip service to but never deliver.

Chancellor George Osborne even injected humour into his fifth Budget speech.

Of Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls he said his opposite number tried to avoid much of the blame for the recession and banking bailout with the words: “Some mistakes were made.”

When announcing a grant to the Magna Carta Trust, the Chancellor said it harked back to the days of King John, “a weak leader who betrayed his brother”, barely glancing across the aisle at Ed Milliband as the packed government benches hooted with pleasure.

We spent the Budget speech with students from Leeds Metropolitan University’s journalism school, many of which were liveblogging about the event.

You can’t dismiss the importance of social media, but I thought the earnest looking female student who informed her colleagues that she was going to monitor “celeb tweets” about the Chancellor’s speech was perhaps speaking more in hope than expectation.

I mentioned the university in a few tweets and was then even added to a Twitter list called ‘Great Journalists’ by one of the students.

Ah, the innocence of youth.

They all set about their business with a great deal of seriousness. As two lads rose to leave the lecture theatre after the speech, one said to the other: “Good luck trying to get up for 8 o’clock tomorrow morning dude.”

They should enjoy student life to the full. I can’t remember the last time I slept past 8am.

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TIMING is everything in business and finding the right time to start up a new venture is important, but not, I think, as crucial as picking the right time to sell it.

I was chatting to a successful recruitment entrepreneur during a St Patrick’s Day event on Monday. I always like to celebrate my Celtic heritage when I can (I’m half Welsh, missus).

While now looks a good time to build a business, particularly in recruitment, I was keen to find out why most recruitment and headhunting firms have two names, even if they are run by one person.

I’ve always assumed it makes them sound bigger than they are.

He told me it is because it makes them sound like a merchant bank.

During the 80s and 90s I’m sure that was a positive move. Given what has happened in the banking world, perhaps it is not something to aspire to as much nowadays.

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WE were the media partner for the Yorkshire Asset Based Lending dinner at the Queens Hotel in Leeds last night.

It sounds dull, but I can assure you it isn’t.

As someone who has been to countless business dinners, I particuarly like this event because it does two things most business dinners don’t: it raises a serious amount of money for charity and it always has good speakers.

How many corporate events can say that?

The event was conceived and is run by the force of nature that is Chris Silverwood of Ethos Corporate Finance.

The self-styled Wolf of Greek Street, Chris is a man that is hard to ignore, but probably well worth the effort to do so.

That was a joke, but not as good as those we heard last night from two excellent speakers. Alfie Moore is a former Scunthorpe traffic policeman whose black humour about life on the beat is hilarious.

And then there was Rod Woodward. He’s a Welshman who has been dubbed a young Dave Allen. High praise indeed, but it is nothing he can’t handle.

Rod has created a half Italian, half Welsh character called Mario DeNiro who had the audience in stitches with his quirkly humour.

Talking about how larger people are sometimes described as “big boned”, he said: “That’s fine, but I’ve never seen a fat skeleton.”

Bizarrely I used to work with Rod’s father Karl. When I was a young business reporter on the Western Mail in Cardiff, Karl Woodward was the sports editor of the newspaper, which given the Welsh love of rugby was something akin to being royalty in the Principality.

Now he’s got a son who is the Clown Prince of Wales.

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WE lost a great British eccentric this week with the death of Clarissa Dickson Wright, the surviving half of the TV cookery team, Two Fat Ladies.

She was a great character with a wealth of stories created in the pursuit of living life to the full.

She was only 66 and apparently was christened Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmeralda Dickson Wright.

She explained this by saying: “My parents had great trouble deciding what to call me in the first place, but then they were so delighted they had finally found a name, they got pissed on the way to the church.”

To decide which name should come first, “they blindfolded my mother and turned her loose in the library, where she pulled out a copy of Richardson’s Clarissa”.

I met her once, at the Yorkshire Variety Club Awards, and, whilst I have already mentioned my experience in this column before, in tribute to Clarissa, I trot it out again.

I was sitting next to her on the top table and was interested to find out that she was teetotal.

She explained to me that her family had a long history of alcoholism, which was first discovered when one of her 17th century forebears tried to put a baby in the oven of his manor house instead of a shoulder of pork.

Have a great weekend.