Budget Analysis

George Osborne’s budgets are an exercise in delayed gratification. There are always promises of pain now, in exchange for pleasure later. But, somehow, economic circumstances — and electoral imperatives —  always see the goodies sprinkled out now and the final reckoning postponed.

In November, the British chancellor was able to avert a promised evisceration of the public sector — thanks to a five-year fiscal plan that contained eye-watering cuts to departmental budgets — when he found £27 billion down the back of the sofa, in the form of higher tax revenues and lower debt payments (which were, he claimed, due reward for his sound economic stewardship).

In his budget Wednesday, what was contained in the chancellor’s famous red box was slightly less welcome news: a downgrade to growth forecasts, and hence a cumulative increase in government borrowing of almost £40 billion, necessitated by the U.K.’s persistently weak productivity.

In coping with this, Osborne delivered a masterclass in modern budget delivery — an art form established under Labour’s Gordon Brown, but perfected by his Conservative successor.

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The template is simple. First, you take the credit for everything that has gone right with the economy and place the blame for anything that has gone wrong on your predecessors or on events overseas. This year, Osborne was able to boast about Britain having the strongest growth among major economies, and an impressive job creation record. The productivity problem was presented, inevitably, as part of a wider failing of the West.

Second, you rattle through the latest economic statistics, as well as the changes you are making to the rules. Again, the idea is to dwell on everything that is to your credit, and garble your way quickly through anything that will cost people money — you can even bury that part in the official documentation. One particularly useful rule of thumb is that if the chancellor uses a piece of jargon that most people won’t understand, such as “public sector pension discount rate,” it’s probably bad news.

One particularly useful rule of thumb is that if the Chancellor uses a piece of jargon that most people won’t understand, such as “public sector pension discount rate,” it’s probably bad news.

Next comes the fun bit: the gimmicks and giveaways. The goal is to reward your chosen constituencies — in both senses of the word. Small business got cuts to taxes, paid for (in theory) by tax increases for the biggest firms a few years down the line. Similarly, fuel duty for drivers was frozen yet again — even though petrol costs have tumbled. Those in the south-west were rewarded for voting Tory at the last election; those in the north were offered new roads and railways, and even a Shakespeare theater, as an inducement to do so in future.

Ideally, the gimmicks are eye-catching enough to make it into the headlines ahead of the bigger but duller fiscal issues. Osborne’s plan to bring in a tax on sugary drinks and use the proceeds to fund sport in schools, was a classic of the genre.

Next comes the rhetoric. This being a serious, statesman-like occasion, chancellors tend to restrict themselves to a few set-piece gags, which are not so much delivered as deployed. Invariably, they are tied to particular spending announcements — so much so that some of the spending only happens, you strongly suspect, to allow the chancellor to make the joke.

The standout this time was Osborne’s claim that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, as MP for Islington, should be especially keen on his approval of funding for the new Crossrail 2 rail line in the capital: “It could have been designed just for him — it’s for all those who live in North London and are heading south.”

The ultimate goal of any chancellor, of course, is to produce a rabbit from the hat.

Then, finally, there is the theme: something to transform an hour or more of largely unrelated and incredibly tedious announcements about public spending into a coherent articulation of Britain’s nature and destiny, something sprawling enough to encompass the whole but snappy enough to fit in a five-second clip on the evening news. Under Osborne, we were told that Britain is an “aspiration nation,” warned to look for a “march of the makers,” lectured endlessly about the “long-term economic plan,” and told that “we are the builders.”

Perhaps it was a mercy, then, that he abandoned alliteration and assonance in favor of a simple insistence that this was a “budget for the next generation” — the argument being that thanks to the Conservatives, the next generation will inherit a country in better fiscal shape than the mess Labour left, and that Osborne’s sugar tax, compulsory math lessons and new savings accounts for under-40s will mean they are fit enough, numerate enough and thrifty enough to prosper in it.

The ultimate goal of any chancellor, of course, is to produce a rabbit from the hat — an attention-grabbing statement (usually involving a naked bribe to the electorate) which has not leaked to the press in advance, thus winning positive headlines and leaving the opposition dumbfounded. And that’s what made this speech so different. It didn’t have a rabbit: It was a great big rabbit pie.

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The conventional expectation, beforehand, had been that this would be a dull budget. The June 23 referendum on Britain’s EU membership is vital to Osborne’s career: Its outcome will largely determine whether he stops giving budgets because he has replaced Cameron, or because he has been fired by the person who did. Surely what was called for was an exercise in steadying the ship, perhaps with a few sweeteners to key Brexit constituencies, such as those small businesses?

But that is to underestimate George Osborne, and his instinct for gambling. If this was going to be his last budget, he seemed to say, then he’d make it the most Osbornian budget of them all — a seemingly endless cavalcade of tweaks and adjustments and initiatives and tax cuts.

The personal tax allowance went up again; corporation tax went down again. He rampaged around other departments’ terrain; announcing, for example, the turbo-charging of the government’s education reforms and a lengthening of the school day alongside those compulsory math lessons and taxes on sugary drinks.

If this was going to be his last budget, he seemed to say, then he’d make it the most Osbornian budget of them all.

For better or for worse, this was Osborne in excelsis. There was even a pointed swipe at the Brexit camp, as he passed along a warning from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility about the economic risks.

As for the response from Labour, well, that was Corbyn in excelsis. Labour’s leader had sharpened up his act, with a tidy haircut and a sharp new jacket that upgraded his look from “substitute teacher” to “newly appointed bank manager.” He assailed the Tory chancellor with genuine and sustained anger, accusing him of promoting inequality, attacking the disabled, favoring hedge fund managers and tax dodgers, and generally having failed to meet his targets.

The problem was that no one was listening: on the Tory front bench, Cameron, Osborne and Home Secretary Theresa May took in the invective with baffled amusement; in newsrooms, reporters were scurrying to compare Osborne’s rhetoric with the official budget documents. The real action in British politics these days — in terms of the outcome of the EU referendum and the future leadership of the country — is inside the Conservative Party. And George Osborne wanted to remind his rivals that on both counts, he’s still very much in the game.