CHANCELLOR Alistair Darling punished the wealthy with a tax hike on £1m-plus house sales yesterday, as he insisted only Labour could be trusted with an economy “at a crossroads”.

In a nakedly political Budget, Mr Darling unveiled a £2.5bn “growth package” – for small businesses, the jobless, pensioners and housebuyers – insisting spending must continue rising until recovery was locked in.

With the general election likely to be just six weeks away, the Chancellor urged voters not to risk that recovery on a Conservative party hell-bent on immediate cuts that would be “wrong and dangerous”.

And he told the Commons: “I am not prepared to take that risk. We have worked too hard as a country to come through this recession to throw it away now.”

Mr Darling also announced eye-catching measures to free many firms from paying business rates, an extra 20,000 university places and doubled the stamp duty holiday for first-time buyers, to £250,000.

And he promised to shift 15,000 Civil Service jobs out of London over the next five years – and a further 13,000 “in the long term” – to areas such as Merseyside.

But, in a Budget also designed to calm the jittery financial markets, he published details of £11bn of planned savings, to answer criticism that the Government is hiding the painful cuts to come from 2011.

The “efficiencies” are startling at health (£4.35bn) and education (£1.1bn) and the detail vague, with talk of cutting staff sickness and consultancy costs. That will raise questions about how ministers can “protect front-line services”, as promised.

In a passionate response, Conservative leader David Cameron insisted the Chancellor was still failing to deliver a “credible plan to deal with Britain’s record debts”.

And he told MPs: “Like every Labour government before them, they’ve run out of money. And they’re leaving it to the next Conservative government to clean up the mess.”