Is it Mr Robertson?

most people think not much – but the fact that it was billed as a debt reduction measure is telling. The freeze, if it reduces debt at all, will do so only marginally. Claiming it as a debt-reduction measure when it manifestly isn’t is pure politics, but if voters see through the Government’s performative parsimony it risks undermining Labour’s hard-won fiscal credibility.

Ironically, the freeze came against the backdrop of yet another month of rosy Crown accounts. Every single month since the election the accounts have come back better than forecast, showing the country to be enjoying a relatively affordable pandemic.

That rosier economic picture would give Robertson every reason to increase the operating allowance – to $3b, say. However, Robertson has been clear for months that improved forecasts mean less money to borrow rather than more money to spend.

The Budget will also include Treasury’s latest set of forecasts, the first substantively new numbers since December. The forecasts will show the size of Crown deficits in the decade to come as well as the level of Government debt.

Ordinarily, the Government would be obliged by the Public Finance Act to set a debt target. However, the Act has an out that allows finance ministers, in the middle of a crisis, to borrow up large and only promise to eventually return to sustainable debt levels over the long term.

Those on the Left hoping Robertson would use that out to trigger a paradigm shift in the way we think about public debt will be disappointed. While we’re probably unlikely to get a numeric target any time soon, Robertson will want to chart a path to lower debt levels in future.

This Budget, of all Budgets, is destined to be boring. Labour is soaring in the polls and election is just under three years away – there’s no need to splash the cash.

Robertson will want to cauterise issues like housing. But these calls on spending will be balanced by a desire to save for a rainy day – that rainy day that comes around Budget time 2023, election year.

With the economic recovery from Covid19 leading to both decreased revenue and increased spending, this budget certainly won’t be balanced in the literal sense.