But seriously

IT WOULD be unwise to expect the last budget before a general election to be anything other than a political event. The occasion is for tax cuts (which tend to be followed by tax rises promptly after the election) and other crowd-pleasing giveaways. Roy Jenkins, a Labour chancellor of the exchequer, bravely tried to break the mould in 1970 with a sober, “non-election” budget. The voters rewarded him by booting his party out of office. By contrast, George Osborne, today’s chancellor, has excelled in this ignoble tradition.Mr Osborne’s sixth budget, delivered on March 18th, is a political masterstroke. Its most important shift is a drastic tweak to spending plans, which appears designed purely to head off a Labour Party attack (see ). Mr Osborne is actually moving in the right direction, but so sneakily as to cast doubt on what he would really do if the Conservatives remain in power after the election on May 7th.