Backgrounder: Stamp Duty reaction

The government has announced a stamp duty holiday, but not everyone thinks this is a reason for celebrating. In fact, reaction to the move was fairly negative.

The Times quoted experts saying it was a 'sticking plaster'. George Buckley, chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank, told the paper that any savings would be wiped out by one month of price falls.

Chris Giles at the FT said the policy was 'unlikely to work' in terms of getting the housing market moving upwards again. The paper also drew a distinction between Gordon Brown's aims for the policy and Alistair Darling's.

Others criticized the fact that the cut is unfunded, something the government has always thrown as a criticism at Tory tax plans.

Not everyone thinks it's a bad idea. The chancellor himself Alistair Darling went on Newsnight to attempt to show he thought the policy was a good idea. But he wasn't getting much support elsewhere.