The Spectator's Notes | 2 May 2009

For once, the unity of comment on the Budget was perfectly justified. It may well have been the worst Budget in history. Which makes it all the more annoying that the ‘Red Book’, which contains the Budget details, is this year entitled ‘Budget 2009: Building Britain’s Future’. It is insulting that official documents should have propagandist titles. They should be plainly called according to what they are. ‘Borrowing Britain’s Future’, for instance, would have been soberly true.

But at least the sheer awfulness of government finances is making it fashionable to think about cuts. Quango culls, freezes on recruitment to the Civil Service, capping pensions offered by the public services: ideas that have not been heard for 30 years are now circulating once more. What is so far missing, though, is leadership by example. People in the public service have to know that they will be promoted for cutting successfully, and to believe that their leader cares about it. Not long after becoming Prime Minister 30 years ago next week, Mrs Thatcher came back from Parliament one day to find a pile of cardboard boxes in the hall of No. 10 Downing Street. What were these, she demanded. They were 32 new electric typewriters, she was told (this was in the days before computers). Why couldn’t they make do with the old ones, she demanded: ‘Send them all back!’ In the end, she grudgingly allowed three typewriters to stay, and 29 were returned. It may well be that the typewriters were genuinely needed, and that her behaviour was therefore, technically, silly. But that is not the point. The point is that everyone got the message.