Hunt's Budget Will Contain Some Sweets But For Whom?

Will Jeremy Hunt use his fiscal wiggle room to prioritise public services, the economy, or the Tory party in this week's spring Budget?

- James Moore

Backbench MPs want tax cuts, believing they are an elixir that will magically revive a torpid economy and move Britain from the bottom to the top of the OECD league table.

As religious convictions go, it's up there with Mormonism's golden plates that the angel Moroni told Joseph Smith were buried in a hill. Except that believing in golden plates doesn't hurt anyone. The most recent prophet of freewheeling Thatcherism minus the fiscal responsibility, Liz Truss, harmed millions of Britons before going down in flames.

Along with Kwasi Kwarteng, she caused the "idiot premium" that made government borrowing more expensive, punching a hole in the public finances. She also kicked individual borrowers in the guts, especially those seeking home loans.

Hunt swept in as the Tory saviour who restored the markets' faith. He emphasised the traditional Tory virtues of prudence and fiscal responsibility. He did it again when facing the gruesome twosome of Esther McVey and Philip Davies - the poison ivy version of Richard and Judy - on their GB News show. Breathing fire and brimstone, McVey asked if he shouldn't feel "embarrassed, ashamed" to have "the highest levels of taxation in modern history"? "It's not what I want at all," insisted Hunt, before stressing the need for a "responsible approach". That's telling them!