IT'S been described as a gamble, but Chancellor Gordon Brown's Budget appears to have won his party the first battle of the next election.

He's raised taxes, knowing that will hit New Labour's middle class core and business hardest. And he's declared his intention of using the proceeds to make our "free-delivery" NHS the world's envy.

Having done it, he's secured the backing, albeit grudging, of the commentators and sceptics whose views will help shape the nation's thinking.

But - while the Budget brought welcome assistance to families, among other relatively routine measures - we're not as sure as some that Messrs Brown and Blair can yet consider the outcome in such optimistic terms.

Let's leave aside, for a moment, the fact that the decision to raise National Insurance contributions marks a breach of electoral trust and has thrown his reputation for prudence out of the window.

Let's not be sidetracked by the truth that, instead, he's pickpocketed the Liberal Democrat manifesto by dipping into an individual's wealth to pay for health.

His decision to have the National Audit Office monitor how the NHS spends its new cash shows how aware he is that throwing money at the system will not be enough to turn the service into the one which he craves, like the rest of us.

In short, the Government now has no excuses for not delivering long-promised improvements in healthcare. He knows it. We all know it.

If it doesn't happen, Labour will face their day of reckoning - and it'll come before the next General Election polling day.