So the last budget in the UK before we head to the polls and vote for a new government. When budgets are this close to an election they are often more manifesto than anything else. And so it proved yesterday.

But there were a few nuggets in there that apply to the tech world.

The first was a commitment to roll out "super fast broadband" to  90% of homes across the country by 2017, slightly watering down a commitment expressed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown the day before when he said the aim was 100% of homes by 2020.

The government plans to do this courtesy of the 50 pence-per-month so-called broadband tax. The Conservatives have vowed to scrap the tax if they win the next election.

Fast net services will create "hundreds of thousands" of new jobs while putting services online will lower the cost of public spending, the chancellor said.

So why the confusion/tension between 90% and 100% and 2017 and 2020?

The answer is simple: economics. On the one hand the market itself has said that government intervention is needed to drive next-generation broadband in Britain, while the government wants to leave it by and large to the market.

If you look at all the fibre success stories around the world - they have all been achieved courtesy of government spending.

The Conservatives, says BBC News,  believe that government intervention to ensure super-fast broadband reaches the whole country is not yet necessary.

They favour leaving the roll out of such services to the industry, although it would consider government assistance in 2012, when digital switchover is done and dusted.

And while the wrangle over who pays for the UK's next-gen network continues, the regulator is busy clarifying who can implement broadband on the fibre.

The FT reports that Ofcom, the media regulator, has begun the process of forcing BT to open its underground network of ducts so rivals can use them to lay fibre-optic cable. BT, meanwhile, denies it is being forced - it says it has already started plans to offer access to its fibre network.

So away from broadband, what else was there of interest to IT watchers?

Well, after many, many years of lobbying and campaigning it appears that the UK games industry is to get the tax breaks it seeks. Trade body Tiga has long argued that the UK is losing out in nurturing the games sector because the UK fails to offer tax incentives - something other countries do.

And this imbalance has seen talent and jobs flow out of the UK to parts of the world like Canada.

"The UK video games industry is important part of the economy, contributing £1 billion to the UK’s Gross Domestic Product, sustaining 27,000 jobs, including over 9,000 highly skilled roles in games development," says Tiga.

Companies will qualify for tax relief if it passes a cultural test, "scoring against criteria of European heritage and game locations, languages, innovation, narrative, and location of development and key development staff".

It will be fascinating to see how this cultural test is applied, particularly when video games tend to be much more culturally homegenous than media such as films and music.