It’s George Osborne’s sixth budget. Every year he exits No 11 on his way to the House of Commons to present his budget and holds aloft the red box containing the budget document. Each year the image is captured by a bank of photographers giving us a timeline of budgets across one parliament. How has Osborne fared?
So sweet. The coalition’s first austerity budget delivered by a pigeon-toed, 12-year-old boy in a school suit. The budget box died of shame and asked to be replaced thereafter.
Too many sticky buns at his desk in the Treasury meant the chancellor was beginning to run a surplus. Just not where he had hoped. The purple Ukip tie was the final straw; Osborne never let his mum dress him again.
Both the bun habit and the deficit are still badly out of control. No shirt was designed to be that full.
Though the suit remained the same, the surplus didn’t. The nation’s finances depended on that one suit button. Heroic.
The chancellor adopts the same austerity 5-2 diet for himself as he prescribes for the country. It definitely works better for him. When you’re that hungry, you can’t smile.
Now back in his schoolboy suit and tie. Shame his mum forgot to have the trousers lengthened.
