Budget 2023 Commentary: great detail or sticking plaster politics?

This immersion in minutiae is what has brought Mr Sunak his two greatest successes as Prime Minister, in coming close to unblocking the Brexit logjam with his “Windsor framework” and in creating a new immigration policy that Conservative MPs, if not Gary Lineker, can support.

But will the detail be enough to win an election when a soaring, inspirational vision is the order of the day?

Preparing to go to the House of Commons to deliver the Budget

Similarly, Jeremy Hunt’s Budget tackled many and varied narrow problems, like too many doctors in their fifties retiring or parents with children under the age of two being unable to afford to the workplace or the environmental definition of nuclear energy.

But will that be enough for the right of his party and the people on the picket line who want him to raise his eyes to the skies and offer a real vision for tackling the huge problems of the moment.

Some of Mr Hunt’s backbenchers want the Conservatives to regain the title of tax-cutters, but, for business, the headline rise in corporation tax to 25 per cent is still going ahead, and, for individuals, the thresholds at which they start paying tax remain frozen.

A little jiggery-pokery with fuel duty and a Brexit boost for the price of draught beer enabled Mr Hunt to boast that the Budget means there will be a “slightly lower” tax take than originally planned, which is hardly a glowing reference. Not even the “full expensing”, by which business can offset its investment against tax and which is to compensate for the first corporation tax rise since 1974, will prevent us from having the highest tax burden since the Second World War.

And the one big tax cut involved how much the wealthiest earners can save for their pensions. Mr Hunt was specifically trying to entice older doctors back to the NHS, but the tax cut applies to everyone who has more than £1m in their pension pot – Mr Hunt’s opponents will be keen to point out that his only tax cut benefits the wealthiest one per cent.

Jeremy Hunt presenting his Budget surrounded by local Tory MPs: Peter Gibson, Darlington MP top right, with Jacob Young of Redcar beneath him. Paul Howell, Sedgefield MP, is over Mr Hunt's left shoulder and, of course, sitting behind him is the Richmond MP Rishi Sunak

This attackline will have added weight because, according to the forecasts, the average British household is expected to be 5.7 per cent worse off in two years’ time.

Which is why there are members of the public – doctors, teachers, civil servants – on the picket line, protesting over their falling pay and the struggling nature of their services. But they hardly got a mention, except when Mr Hunt promised to “settle the strikes without causing inflation”, which seems to indicate that there is no new money and no new strategy from the Treasury to solve these huge issues.

But, drilling into the minutiae, there was lots to solve specific problems. An extra £200m to fill potholes and £63m to keep community swimming pools afloat – a measure greeted with much noise from the opposition benches because public pools are struggling at a time when the Prime Minister is building a large private pool at his home near Northallerton.

There was an end to the grotesque unfairness that the four million poorest on pre-payment meters get charged more for their energy than those who pay by direct debit.

Mr Hunt's childcare package gets a big hand from some

Plus there was the childcare package, which went further than expected, recruiting more childminders, increasing the number of children they can look after, providing 30 hours free childcare for all children over nine months of age, and the introduction of wraparound out-of-school clubs from 8am to 6pm. It is such a big package that some of it cannot be phased in until September 2026, and there is doubt whether there will be enough childminders, so will it solve Mr Hunt’s narrow problem of getting some of the 1.7m stay-at-home parents into the workplace?

But perhaps Mr Hunt, like Mr Sunak, isn’t trying to inspire voters with his grand vision. Perhaps, after the traumatic Truss years, he thinks there is credit in keeping the ship stable and that he can micro-manage his way to the voters’ hearts by filling in potholes and saving swimming pools.

Or is that, as Labour leader Keir Starmer argued, just “sticking plaster politics” while the big issues, like the direction of the country and the growing numbers on strike, go unresolved?