A Lost Decade For Living Standards, You Say... Haven't We Just Had One Of Those?

The success of a Budget is measured in how long it takes to collapse. Some arrive pre-collapsed, others collapse in real time.

- Tom Peck

In recent years, success has been if they haven't collapsed by the time the Office for Budget Responsibility publishes its analysis, revealing in very clear detail all of the horrific things the chancellor deliberately chose not to say.

Kwasi Kwarteng's mini-Budget didn't suffer this fate, because he and Liz Truss wisely chose to block the Office for Budget Responsibility from analysing it, and just to be doubly careful, they also sacked the head of the treasury department, who they probably deep down knew was going to tell them that it was going to collapse with pyrotechnic effect but they'd rather not hear.

A very successful Budget is one that is still vaguely intact by the time economists, journalists and occasionally government ministers have assembled the morning after to hear what Paul Johnson, the of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, makes of it all, in his now traditional post-Budget briefing.

And if it hasn't collapsed by the time Mr Johnson has finished with it, then it can be officially branded the most successful Budget of all time, on the basis that such a thing has never happened before.

It's hard to tell if Jeremy Hunt's Budget has or hasn't collapsed. Its standout policy, the extension of 30 hours free childcare to one- and two-year-olds, is still just about up on its feet - but it's looking increasingly unsteady, and you'd be brave to rule out some kind of tumble, the administration of a cold compress, and the inevitable yellow form for Mr Hunt to sign when he comes to pick it up.