A century of failure: the big fixes and why they went wrong

In Britain Budget Day has its own special ritual. Even the apolitical take an interest, in the way that those with no love for horse racing often have a flutter on the Epsom Derby, when the chancellor of the Exchequer stands on the doorstep of 11 Downing Street on a spring afternoon holding the red box containing his speech aloft for the cameras, kisses his wife (if he has one), then sets off for the Palace of Westminster to present an account of the nation’s finances and its economic prospects. Once upon a time, the pageantry involved the second lord of the Treasury taking a stroll in St James’s Park to feed the ducks, although this is now seen as too much of a security risk. It was also the case in more innocent times that chancellors jealously guarded their budget secrets, retreating with their civil servants into what was known as ‘purdah’ for weeks before the big day, before revealing all to a crowded House of Commons. Indeed, one of the subjects of this chapter lost his job for telling a journalist what was in his speech minutes before announcing his measures at the despatch box.