Predictions today’s fiscal event – expected at 9.30am – could be biggest package of tax cuts since 1988
. That is clearer than calling it a “fiscal event”, as they do at the Treasury, but it’s not ideal because what we are getting is not a budget , and it is not going to be mini at all. In fiscal terms, it will be humongous – the biggest package of tax cuts since Nigel Lawson’s budget of 1988, according to economists.
And just as the Lawson budget shifted the political consensus around taxation for a decade, Liz Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, want to smash orthodox thinking on borrowing and growth. When David Cameron became prime minister in 2010, the Conservatives beat Labour by claiming that Gordon Brown had spent too much and lost control of the public finances. Faced with Jeremy Corbyn, the Tories claimed that Corbynomics was dependent on the discovery of some non-existent “magic money tree”.
Chancellors always like to have a surprise announcement on budget day, and it has been reported that Kwarten has left two rabbits in his hat ready to present to MPs.