Today’s Spring Statement was intended to be the anti-Budget: no rabbits, no leaks, no lengthy speeches. After last November’s disaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) was not entrusted to upload a copy of the Chancellor’s speech; even the name of the ‘Spring Statement’ was rebranded by Treasury spin doctors as a simple unexciting ‘forecast’. Rachel Reeves will gain some satisfaction that she achieved her primary goal: she got through her speech without committing much in the way of news. But the Chancellor’s unwillingness to create a convincing narrative simply means that it is the dry prose of the Treasury watchdog which will fill the headlines instead.

The OBR’s 131-page report makes for sobering reading. There are grim statistics aplenty to fill tomorrow’s newspapers.Welfare spending is set to climb by £18........

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