Jeremy Hunt’s cynical budget is the last, desperate gasp of a dying government

‘It is truly shameful that Jeremy Hunt did nothing in the budget to help lift out of poverty the 3.8 million people, including 1 million children, who are now so poor they are destitute.’ Photograph: Andy Bailey

Budgets are never just about the economy. They are major political interventions and the last budget before a general election has to be a showstopper to have any effect on the political weather, especially if your party is lying consistently 20 points behind in the polls.

This one confirmed that the government will stagger on in the hope that its fortunes will look up by October, when I believe it is likely to announce a cut in income tax in a last-gasp pre-election autumn statement. The Sunak administration is destined to go out not with a bang, but a whimper.