Balanced, shrewd and effective route to prosperity

NORMALITY has returned to British politics. In place of last autumn's turmoil at the Treasury, stability now reigns. It is a tribute to Jeremy Hunt's authoritative stewardship of the economy that he was able to deliver his Budget in an atmosphere N of calm rather than crisis. Pragmatic, solid and optimistic, the statement itself reflecting this mood of reassurance.

- Leo McKinstry

Remarkably, Hunt yesterday became only the second Chancellor out of the last five actually to deliver a Budget at all, another indicator of the recent turbulence that has engulfed the Tory government. The other was Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, who shares his Chancellor's command of detail, mainstream Conservatism, coolness under pressure and a successful background in business.

In contrast the reigns of Sajid Javid, Nadhim Zahawi and Kwasi Kwarteng were so short or shambolic that they never had the chance to brandish the famous red box.

Like its architect, yesterday's Budget was balanced, shrewd and effective. It contained no grandiose vision nor did it sound the trumpet for revolution. Instead, it held out the prospect that the Government would keep Britain on a steady course towards prosperity.

Some found all this a bit boring and lacking in audacity. Julian Jessop, a fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs, said: "I would like a bit of danger and a little bit of risk."

Well, that was tried with Kwarteng, for whom the Institute was one of the biggest cheerleaders, and the results were, frankly, catastrophic. The image of the Budget's dullness was reinforced because it held few surprises, since all its high-profile measures had been heavily trailed before Hunt reached the Despatch Box.

Long gone are the days when the contents of the red box were a tightly guarded secret up to the moment the Chancellor spoke, so much so that in 1947, Labour's Hugh Dalton had to resign from the position after admitting that he had given a London journalist an outline of his plan just before he entered the Commons.

A decade earlier the loquacious Minister Jimmy Thomas was expelled not just from the Cabinet but even Parliament for leaking some Budget material.