I’m not Eeyore, I’m Tigger, said Phil with a fruity quiver

sees the Chancellor ditch his gloomy ways

THE first Spring Statement turned out to be Budget Day without the news value or tax decisions but with almost as much squabbling. One thing, though, was different: Philip Hammond sounded optimistic. Private Frazer with a Christmas-cracker tooter.

The old woebegone was at times almost frisky, discarding his Mr Crepehanger ways for something more closely resembling one of those dogs in adverts for ‘Bounce Chunks’. Woof woof.

The Chamber had filled to about twothirds capacity and there was a sense of middling excitement when Mr Hammond approached the despatch box just after 12.30pm. These things are relative, let it be stressed. Hammond set-pieces have the box- office appeal of Dr Henry Kissinger reciting German love poems.

Mr Hammond proceeded initially to speak for over 20 minutes, several of them given to economic statistics. If you think that was dull, you should see the accompanying Office for Budget Responsibility publication: 236 pages of charts and graphs. I need an eye massage.

The Chancellor claimed that the British economy was in decent fettle. ‘If there are any Eeyores in the Chamber,’ he intoned with a fruity quiver at the side of his mouth, ‘they are on the Labour benches. I am at my most positively Tigger-like today.’ AA Milne’s Tigger, if I recall, was a bit of a liability and not quite the full shilling. Eeyore was a far more bank-managerial figure. Oh well.

Having told us that he was standing up for ‘white van man’ and that he envisaged ‘construction skills villages’, Mr Hammond finally entered a long peroration with various dead phrases about how Britain was ‘a beacon of talent...outward-looking and free-trading...best days ahead of us...a country we can all be proud to pass on to our children’ etc., etc.

Theresa May was sitting beside him on the front bench but there was no sign of the Foreign or Home Secretaries. They were perhaps busy elsewhere with the Russia problem.

An unimpressed John McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor, soon hit turbulence from Tory hecklers. Speaker Bercow did little to stop them but Mr McDonnell, who has the chilly mirthlessness of a Government vet, said ‘the Tory bully boys can shout all they like’.

This gave Mr Hammond the opportunity to flay Mr McDonnell with unusual animus – he called his ideology ‘sinister’. If anyone was a ‘bully boy’ it was Mr McDonnell, snarled Mr Hammond, reminding that House that he had still not apologised to Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey for some unpleasant things he is alleged to have said about her.

MR

McDonnell, usually inexpressive, sniffed hard during this sally. Maybe he is starting to realise that he should have done the gentlemanly thing and begged Miss McVey’s forgiveness.

‘Austerity was a political choice, not an economic necessity,’ intoned Mr McDonnell. Another whoosh of noise from the Tories, who argued that Labour’s recession of 2008/ 2009 had made budget cuts imperative.

Despite Mr Hammond’s attempt yesterday to declare austerity over, we are still caught in the rhetorical cycle of that prolonged recession. These arguments have been made for the past decade. They are stale enough to be turned into breadcrumbs.

The Scots Nats’ main contribution was made not by their economics wallah, Kirsty Blackman, but by their Westminster leader, Ian Blackford. McMansplaining? Mr Blackford shouted for, and about, Scotland. Various Scottish Tories shouted back at him. Speaker Bercow seemed uninterested in quelling the clans.

Kenneth Clarke (Con, Rushcliffe) wanted richer pensioners to be whacked by tax. Sir Edward Leigh ( Con, Gainsborough) thought this unwise, given that older voters tend to vote Tory.

Andrew Bridgen (Con, NW Leics) said Corbyn- style socialism had wrecked the economy of Venezuela. Mr Hammond said he had watched Russian television and had been assured that ‘everything’s going swimmingly’ in Venezuela. Leaden laughter from Government MPs.

Robert Halfon (Harlow), one of the more interesting Tories, said the important thing was the cost of living. Mr Hammond agreed, claiming that inflation would soon drop. But let’s wait until it happens. Who believes forecasts?