If you’re the kind of person that finds money down the back of your sofa, the chances are you’re the kind of person that also loses it down there in the first place. That’s the lesson the Chancellor was taught by his budget yesterday.
At the centre of all the Commons rhetoric, stats and pun-strewn newspapers this morning is a major deterioration in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast for the public finances over the coming years: a £55bn fiscal hole, reversing more than twice over the £27bn fiscal windfall the OBR gave the Chancellor from the back of the sofa just four months ago at the Autumn Statement.
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