This budget was delivered just 105 days after the autumn statement and it showed.
The overwhelming message was that, politically and economically, not enough has changed since November to give the chancellor the means or motivation to deliver a truly significant moment.
Monthly pay calculator shows if you’re really getting a tax cut
Jeremy Hunt’s speech was a rabbit-free zone, a series of pre-briefed tweaks and extensions to existing policy, most notably the 2p cut to employees’ national insurance, and a couple of shameless land-grabs of Labour policy to cover the £10bn price tag, including reform of “non-dom” status and an extension of the oil and gas windfall tax.
While the opposition will point out the hypocrisy of those measures, Hunt’s approach does at least have the virtue of consistency.
The national insurance cut continues his focus on workers rather than the retired and no one keeping an extra £450 a-year will complain.
He’s also extended grants and stimulus to growth industries including those in the energy transition, as well as the full-expensing regime for business investment universally welcomed when it was revealed last year.
Budget live updates: No income tax change – but action on child benefit and non-dom status
Little has changed
The problem Mr Hunt and the prime minister face is that these steps only nudge the economic needle and still leave huge questions about the state of the public finances for whoever begins next year in Downing Street.
After all the focus on the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and its role in evaluating the chancellor’s self-imposed fiscal rules, its verdict on the public finances is that very little has changed.
The forecast for inflation has come down dramatically, expected to fall to 2% by the summer thanks to declining energy costs, a year earlier than previously set out and in line with the Bank of England.
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