“Finally…” Rachel Reeves was only 12 minutes into her Budget speech, and we wondered if we were about to catch a break. Might she have decided that brevity is the soul of fiscal wit? Was she going to refer us all to a website and sit down? Fat chance.
The shortest Budget speech on record was Benjamin Disraeli’s, in 1867, which lasted 45 minutes. Reeves’ effort on Wednesday was not, sadly, the second shortest. It weighed in at about an hour and a quarter by the tape, though it felt longer.