Budgets that made a mark From sweeping tax cuts to breaking the UK economy

AIl budgets matter, but some matter more than most. In the 100 years since Sir Winston Churchill used his debut as chancellor in 1925 to put Britain back on the gold standard, the first budget of a parliament has often been one that lives in the memory.

- Larry Elliott

It's not a cast-iron rule. Sir Geoffrey Howe's most controversial budget was in 1981 - midterm in Margaret Thatcher's first administration - when he raised taxes even though the economy was deep in recession. That decision prompted 364 economists to write to the Times in protest - and still divides the profession today.

But if Rachel Reeves is good to her word and has a tough package of measures to announce when she reveals the contents of her red box tomorrow, she will be following in the footsteps of many of her predecessors.

There are plenty of reasons why chancellors like to hit the ground running. It is a chance to set the direction for the parliament. It allows big structural reforms time to have an effect. And it allows an incoming government to blame its defeated opponents for any unpopular decisions they need to make.

Here are five first budgets (or to be more accurate, five budgets and one fiscal event that was as good as a budget) that have made a difference over the past half century, along with a verdict out of five on how much they broke the mould and the legacy they left.

Sir Geoffrey Howe

June 1979

Howe wasted little time after the Conservative victory in the May 1979 election to signal a decisive break with the postwar economic consensus. His budget marked the beginning of the Tory party's monetarist experiment, under which controlling inflation through the use of higher interest rates and tough fiscal control took precedence over full employment. Markets were liberalised and there was a shift away from taxes on income in favour of taxes on consumption.