Rachel Reeves’s killer question of Hunt’s Autumn Statement

After the disaster that befell Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget, his successor Jeremy Hunt was never likely to want to pull many rabbits out of hats in his Autumn Statement.

In fact, seldom has a pitch been rolled so extensively before a Chancellor’s statement as it was before today’s, both via a string of briefings emanating from within the Treasury about its likely contours and contents and the seeking of statements of advance approval from independent scrutineers.

Hunt was at pains to quote the NHS chief executive as confirming the extra resources for healthcare should be sufficient to allow the service to discharge its core responsibilities. More crucially still, he deferred to – and referred to – the forecasts of the Office for Budget Responsibility time and again.

Financial market reaction – or the relative lack of it – indicates that Hunt has already succeeded in his goal of showing that the ‘Reasonables’ are back in charge of the economic levers.