Hunt has relied on smoke and mirrors – and the voters will see through it

Editorial: The assumption among many will be that by around this time next year, it will be Rachel Reeves in No 11, and whatever Jeremy Hunt has planned will be subject to change anyway

(Dave Brown)

In today’s autumn statement for growth, our choice is not big government, high spending and high tax because we know that leads to less growth, not more.”

The chancellor’s words were couched in impeccably Conservative language, and he is obviously right that economies do indeed tend to struggle over the long term under such onerous conditions. The problem, as the analyses from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and other sources soon made clear, is that, despite appearances, Mr Hunt is in fact the chancellor in charge of a big-government, high-spending, high-tax administration.

The shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves pointed out that prior to this statement, over recent years, “the government had already put in place tax increases worth the equivalent of a 10p [in the pound] increase in national insurance”. Mr Hunt, for all his boasts, has actually only given 2 pence in the pound back to people. That is the essential context of a Budget that is, more than most, a fine example of using smoke and mirrors for the purposes of presentation.