Some tax lawyers, perhaps feeling a twinge of sympathy for a time when the UK used to have manufacturing clients, are in the knocking camp but, by most City lawyers' yardsticks, you would have to call Gordon Brown's last Budget a result.

The ruthless, cynical but effective tactic of cutting corporation tax from 30% to 28% will clearly benefit the highly profitable, highly mobile banks and financiers that are the Square Mile's bread and butter. Of course, small business and capital-intensive manufacturers (which are less likely to relocate abroad) will pay for most of that largesse. Fair? No, but it will probably work.

The theme of boosting the City and chasing mobile capital was further underlined by moves to introduce legislation allowing tax relief on Islamic finance and proposals to cut taxes on property investment funds. The Islamic finance initiative in particular, swiftly supported by London major Ken Livingstone, looks to be exactly the kind of opportunistic but workable policy-making that has underpinned the growth of the City under Labour. The goal of making London the Western financial capital for Sharia-compliant financing has certainly taken a major step forward.

It was a telling contrast that on the day of the Budget the US Securities and Exchange Commission finally pushed through the foreign de-registration reforms that are intended to mitigate the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley on foreign listers.

This comes a hardly-nimble two years after initially being proposed, and the fact that US policy-makers are trying to make New York more attractive to foreign companies by making it easier to leave is a stark reminder of just how far Manhattan's drawing power has faded.

There are some tax specialists who feel that not enough has been done to make the UK competitive, with Brown criticised for allowing the UK to lose some of its tax competitiveness against European Union rivals. But the UK is hardly competing with Ireland and the accession countries and it has lower taxes and less regulation thancomparable major economies such as France and Germany.

So overall, the general verdict from tax specialists was that the Budget was likely to achieve its key aims.

Allen & Overy tax partner Brenda Coleman says: "The message is that the Treasury is listening and saying we need to send a sign to big business and companies in the UK that we are looking at the compliance burden and trying to cut down on administration for businesses."

This being a Brown budget, advisers are hunting for surprises in the footnotes. Issues cited last week include the upcoming review of the tax treatment of foreign profits, moves to tax planning gains on property and the impact of the changing definition of offshore funds.

Tax lawyers unsurprisingly also take aim at Brown's incessant fiddling. Linklaters tax chief Guy Brannan speaks for many, arguing that "in the long term there needs to be a more radical overhaul of the system" to deal with much of the Chancellor's legacy. Ashurst's John Watson adds: "It says everything about the over-complexity of the tax system that HM Revenue & Customs have already had to correct three of their Budget Notes. If they cannot get it right, God help the taxpayer."

But what will tax advisers do when have to get by without the micro-managing Chancellor who has rained down an unprecedented stream of highly lucrative fiddling for 10 years?

Gord certainly helped the lawyers.

See Deal Week blogs for more on the Budget and Barclays' ABN Amro bid.