U.K. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt will stage a moment of high political theater Wednesday, unveiling his budget to a crowd of baying lawmakers as consumers demand more help with the high cost of living and workers press for higher wages with strikes at schools, hospitals and the offices of civil servants.
Even as Hunt plays his historically scripted role — emerging from his official residence with the spending plan in a battered red dispatch box, then carrying it to the House of Commons where he will be greeted by jeers and cheers — the truth is he will try to be as boring as possible.
