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Is it merely ironic when a former KGB agent owns a newspaper called The Independent?

"It is... Are you?" as its early advertising went. And is Mr Lebedev?

At a price knocked down so far it's negative, it's symbolic at least of the cheapening of assets denominated in sterling, when sought by foreign oligarchs.

Then what are we to make of Scotland's beleaguered rival newspapers, who have struggled to meet the challenge of digital media, now finding common cause and getting government backing for the takeover of the country's beleaguered commercial television news?

This is apparently in the name of innovation.

I, meanwhile, have been at the day-after-the-budget analysis by the Institute of Fiscal Studies. Not much irony there. Nor much change to report on their previous horrendously big deficit figures, as Alistair Darling's Budget tinkered only at the edges of the Big Fiscal Picture.

Tough or vague

But it was a reminder of the breathtaking scale of the cuts that will be required to plug the nation's financial pothole, particularly if some services are to be protected.

Put a reassuring arm round hospitals and schools, for instance, and you find everything else will have to take a 20% cut over the next four years.

Labour wants to protect those schools and hospitals, at least for two years, as well as policing and overseas aid. Tories have only said the NHS and aid are off limits. Lib Dems aren't guaranteeing anything, which is either a sign of toughness or vagueness.

There hasn't been much discussion of which bits of the Holyrood budget each of its parties are wanting to protect, or how they are going to implement the resulting big cuts that will dig deeper into everything else.

But don't under-estimate the significance of Shona Robison, the health minister, announcing on a busy budget day that the cost of free personal care for the elderly looks pretty daunting within two decades, rising towards £8bn per year.

That isn't news to demographers, but it's news that the Scottish government has conceded there's a big problem, which will need some big thinking.

Perverse incentives

The IFS take on the Budget takes a harsh look at the Government's treatment of stamp duty, making a compelling case that this deserves the special accolade of Britain's least efficient tax.Ìý

Before Labour came to power, there was a flat percentage rate take on home purchases. As Chancellor, Gordon Brown brought in a series of stepped increases, to increase revenue from the better off, and to ensure the Exchequer enjoyed some of the party that home-owners were enjoying until the financial crisis.

Now, Alistair Darling has made a complex system far more complex, with distinctions being drawn between top rate residential and non-residential property at the top end, and between first-time buyers and others below £250,000.

The IFS case is that cutting stamp duty for almost all first time buyers creates all sorts of perverse incentives.

For instance, because the stamp duty holiday is temporary, they now have an incentive to save more tax by buying a home that's bigger than they need.

There's an incentive to bring forward purchases to fall within the two-year period it operates, with a resulting slump when it's over.

And as any couple with one partner who has previously owned are disqualified from the tax exemption, there is an incentive to avoid joint ownership. What does that say about supporting stable household formation?

Blowing price bubbles

At the top end, it's an easy political hit against those in very big houses. But it's an odd tax system that adds £10,000 of tax for one extra pound of expenditure on a large house. That's what the rise in expensive houses is doing as purchases go through the million pound threshold.

The bigger question is why the Government is reinforcing Britain's obsession with home ownership, which has led to price bubbles in the past.

And the notion of a stamp duty is a strange thing for the Government to levy, when it creates an incentive for home-owners not to move house. An efficient tax would encourage people to move to a house of a size and in a location that suits them best.

What does stamp duty say about this and any government's commitment to labour market flexibility?

Such is the complexity of the system now that perhaps the seeds have been sewn of stamp duty's eventual abolition - if only the Government could do without the revenue.Ìý

And right now, it most certainly can't.