Somehow the chancellor omitted to mention the main cause of Britain’s woes
unveil the budget live on TV, though a carefully coordinated campaign of leaks to client media outlets meant it held little of the excitement it did in the 1970s. Where’s the fun in that? If Hunt’s 2024 budget was a 19th-century Parisienne burlesque artist, she would have walked on stage already naked and then gradually put her clothes back on, to the increasing uninterestedness of the disappointed perverts in attendance.
The squalls of feedback gave the event the air of a mid-80s Jesus and Mary Chain set performed by the cast of Trumpton Later, in the square, I shared my hymn sheet with a Cornishman who didn’t know the words either and sang the Cornish national anthem, The Song of the Western Men, which was written in 1825 by the antiquarian parson Robert Hawker. He famously invented the harvest festival, dressed up as a mermaid and once excommunicated his cat for catching a mouse on a Sunday.