UK budget leaked on Twitter as government re-states 4G vow
The contents of George Osborne's famous red briefcase was leaked by the Evening Standard erroneously tweeting its front page ahead of time.
The UK budget was leaked on Twitter today, granting politically minded surfers a sneak peek at George Osborne's number-crunching ahead of time.
The key aspects of the chancellor's new measures emerged early when London's Evening Standard newspaper tweeted its front page, which detailed the most crucial aspects of the annual ploy to make the UK more economically healthy.
The Standard posted an apology on its site, with editor Sarah Sands saying, "An investigation is immediately under way into how this front page was made public." The person who sent the tweet has been suspended while that investigation happens, the newspaper boss says.
As for the budget itself, there was little for tech and gadget fiends to get excited about (though we can all rally around 1p off a pint of beer). Mr Osborne did take the opportunity to re-iterate his plans for the UK's Internet speeds, saying, "We're giving Britain the fastest broadband and mobile telephony in Europe."
That doesn't quite jive with Ofcom's report on the UK's broadband progress from earlier this month, which places the UK third for superfast broadband take-up, for example.
The UK will get faster mobile data this year, as operators have just walked away from a big spectrum auction with slices of bandwidth to use in 4G networks. That auction raised £2.34bn for the UK, but fell short of the £3.5bn Mr Osborne had already factored into the nation's budget.
It's possible more tech-centric budget revelations will emerge shortly, as the full details of the plan are pored over. For now, let me know in the comments or on Facebook whether you're excited about 4G. And is this the worst Twitter leak ever? Or a storm in less than 140 characters?