On Monday, Philip Hammond stood up in the House of Commons and declared that austerity was coming to an end.
Beyond a huge sum for the NHS that we already knew about, this year’s budget was fairly light on big announcements. But it would be a mistake to dismiss this year’s budget as a nonevent. What it lacked in major new proposals, it more than made up for in political significance, with a Conservative Chancellor effectively giving up on balancing the books.
This week on Free Exchange, I tried to make sense of fiscal Phil’s pronouncements with a group of eagle-eyed Westminster watchers and CapX contributors: James Heywood is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Policy Studies, Madeline Grant is Editorial Manager of the Institute of Economic Affairs and Scott Corfe is Chief Economist at the Social Market Foundation.
You can listen to the full episode here, or subscribe via iTunes.
