For a Budget with so many measures known days in advance, one of the biggest surprises came not from the Chancellor, but from the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast. Economic growth will stay anaemic, not exceeding 2 per cent in any of the next five years.
There is no doubt that the Chancellor inherited an economy on life-support, after the previous Conservative government crashed the public finances, left our international trading relationships to decline and failed to put forward any kind of long-term economic vision.
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