Spread Fear Phil is still here...

Back in 1947, the then chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Dalton was forced to resign after leaking details of his Budget to a journalist called John carvel. Some of his tax changes, including a penny on a pint of beer, appeared in later editions of the long-since defunct London evening newspaper, The Star, while Dalton was still on his hind legs in the commons.

His fellow MPs were outraged at this shocking breach of Parliamentary protocol, even though there was no evidence that early disclosure had any effect on the price of fish, let alone the stock market.

Nevertheless, Dalton was obliged to fall on his sword. Three decades later, I found myself working on London’s Evening Standard, alongside — some rungs below, actually — carvel’s son Robert, the Standard’s political editor.

One of the big set-piece events of Bob carvel’s year, for which he would fortify himself with a can or two of carlsberg Special Brew, was Budget Day.

By then, although chancellors were supposed to spend the preceding weeks in so-called ‘purdah’, selected political editors were spoon-fed a few crucial morsels on the understanding that they weren’t published in advance of the Budget speech.

This gave Fleet Street’s cartoonists plenty of time to prepare their front page illustrations, which were dependent on the theme of the measures being announced.

For instance, if the chancellor of the day decided to bung the NHS an extra few quid, he’d be depicted as a benevolent doctor in a white coat, complete with stethoscope.

If he froze the duty on whisky, he’d inevitably be caricatured sipping a wee dram, wearing a tartan kilt and a See You Jimmy hat.

NOvELTY front pages were as much a part of the annual Budget Day ritual as the chancellor posing on the steps of No 11 Downing Street, waving his red box, which is supposed to contain the closely guarded secrets he is about to reveal to the commons.

These days you’ll find more secrets inside a box of Black Magic. The modern Treasury leaks like a colander, every year mounting a series of clumsy, stage-managed attempts to soften us up for the good news/bad news in store.

Even the chancellor himself can’t resist getting in on the act. Spread Fear Phil was preening himself all over the Tv channels at the weekend, teasing anyone who could be bothered to listen about his plans for the coming year.

Not for Hammond the strictly enforced purdah, breach of which cost Hugh Dalton the keys to No 11.

The papers have been full of deliberately placed titbits involving everything from help for the High Street to more money for tree planting. Today’s Budgets are as much about burnishing the chancellor’s own political credentials as addressing the nation’s finances.

Why else would Hammond be announcing that all schools and a&E departments are to get dedicated mental health units, apart from the fact that there’s been a well-orchestrated campaign to elevate mental health to the top of the political agenda — so that it is now acknowledged as an ‘epidemic’ which can only be cured by throwing lashings of taxpayers’ money at it?

Not that he’s the faintest idea how he is going to pay for this largesse. The grand gesture is all that counts. He’s even had the audacity to use his round of pre-Budget briefings to threaten that unless we swallow Mother Theresa’s dismal, defeatist, dishwater-weak chequers version of Brexit, then all bets are off and we can forget about whatever goodies he announced yesterday.

DON’T be fooled by gimmicks such as the commemorative Brexit 50p coin. Hammond and May are determined to keep us under the yoke of the EU at all costs.

No deal, no end to austerity, is the ultimatum from the chancellor. What does that even mean? We’re supposed to send £39billion to Brussels when the nation is £1.8 trillion in debt and rising?

I want to scream every time I hear politicians and lobbyists bleating about ‘austerity’. Why don’t we talk instead about ‘balancing the books’, or ‘living within our means’, or ‘not spending money we haven’t got’, or ‘not borrowing money we can’t afford to pay back’? Why even bother with a Budget? Most of the fiddling with tax thresholds can be put on the statute book without a great song and dance.

The only ‘secrets’ in Hammond’s red box are the nasty surprises which he will have somehow forgotten to tell the commons and will only emerge a couple of days later when the dust settles.

This kind of sleight of hand was a hallmark of Gordon Brown’s time at the Treasury. and, as I have explained previously, Hammond is little more than a third-rate Gordon Brown tribute act.

So I shall continue my habit of reserving judgment on the Budget until it unravels later this week.

Once, a penny on a pint made headlines. Now, who knows how much a pint costs? In parts of London, you’ll get no change from a fiver. Elsewhere a pint will only

(only?) cost £3.40. So whatever the chancellor does to alcohol duty, it won’t make much difference.

as for Hammond himself, he is a political mediocrity who has shamelessly abused his high office to consistently undermine and attempt to overturn the democratic will of 17.4 million people who voted for Britain to leave the EU — no ifs, no buts, no transition period, no backstops, no common rule book, no divorce payment.

If he had a shred of his predecessor Hugh Dalton’s decency, the only statement he should have delivered yesterday was his resignation.