There are some things in life that you can always rely on: the sun will rise in the East, there will be showers in April, and the Conservatives will find a way to put off balancing the books. Although George Osborne – back when he was Chancellor – initially aimed to eliminate the structural deficit by 2015, it has since been pushed back time and time again. His successor Philip Hammond isn’t much better, pushing paying off the deficit until the middle of the next decade, in the 2017 manifesto. At the time, I wrote that their record on the issue meant there was little reason to believe the Tories would even stick with the new date.
So, today’s story in the Times claiming Philip Hammond plans to – once again – delay balancing the books certainly has a sense of déjà vu about it. The paper reports that Hammond is preparing to use the Autumn Budget to ‘acknowledge that the public finances may not be balanced before 2027’.
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