Did Hunt rescue the Tories or is the game up?

The latest chancellor's budget comes in the shadow ofthe Liz Truss debacle, hard times ahead and low party morale

- Toby Helm

Back when it all began in 2010, the then Conservative chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, delivered what he described as "this unavoidable budget". A package of savage spending cuts and painful tax rises lay at its heart. The message was that the Tory-led coalition was riding to the rescue to put right the wrongs of 13 years of Labour government, and, after a short sharp shock of austerity, soon all would be a bed of economic roses.

More than 12 years on, last Thursday Jeremy Hunt was offering yet more painful medicine, and still little sign at all of rosier times ahead. In the short term taxes would have to rise again, this time by a massive £25bn ($30bn), Hunt said, while spending would need to be reined in by £30bn.

There were consequences for the wider Tory agenda. Badly needed domestic reforms promised by successive Conservative prime ministers, such as those to social care, would have to be delayed for the umpteenth time.

Funds for public services would be squeezed and plans to raise international aid shelved. There would be help for the poorest at home, with benefits and pensions being uprated in line with inflation, because without such a hike, at a time when prices were rising at terrifying rates, their plight would soon become intolerable.

Despite this litany of economic failure and national decline, Hunt, the fourth Tory chancellor of the exchequer in as many months, nonetheless managed in his peroration to declare that the Conservatives remained the party to be trusted most with the economy.

Opposition MPs gasped, and Tories cheered. But they could all see the glaring fault lines in the chancellor's arguments. They knew Hunt's task was twofold: to put the economy back on something resembling a sensible course after Liz Truss's reckless minibudget, while obscuring the obvious Tory culpability for its dreadful state in whatever way he could.