George Osborne used to tell the world’s most expensive jokes. At the 2015 Budget, the then-chancellor said £1 million would be spent to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, primarily to land a gag about a Labour-SNP alliance. Further public money was allocated to reducing tolls on the Severn Bridge, seemingly to poke fun at Harriet Harman’s pink (or was it magenta?) van.
I’m prepared to believe the policies came before the jokes. But that’s hardly the point. In how many other countries does the finance minister stand up at the most important fiscal event of the year and set aside, by the standard of nation-states, tiny sums of money for local projects?
