Hammond can build his way out of trouble

Sometimes in life the biggest risk you can take is to play it safe. This is the predicament of Philip Hammond as he approaches the Budget next month. If he adopts a safety-first approach, it will almost certainly go wrong and he’ll be forced into a credibility-draining U-turn, as he was in March. His best hope is to be bold, and to hope this generates enough momentum to carry him over any bumps in the road.

The two longest-serving chancellors of recent times have relished the theatrics of Budget Day. Both Gordon Brown and George Osborne loved pulling a rabbit out of the hat at the last minute, wrongfooting the opposition and grabbing the headlines. Hammond isn’t like that. He is more cautious and technocratic, with remarkably little interest in political strategy for so senior a politician.

But for him to adopt a cautious approach to this Budget would be a mistake.