Dull and constrained. But that, in practice, is what the Budget needed to be. There were a few bits and pieces to hearten the party faithful. Annexing gin – “mother’s ruin” in Hogarth’s day – and other alcohol duties to inch the government a little closer to its target of halving child poverty by 2010, for example. A little extra help for pensioners in the face of rocketing fuel prices by putting up to £1 a week on the winter fuel allowance.

But the public services – a few tweaks to education aside – barely got a mention. Faced with a Budget in which he had next to no room to manoeuvre, the chancellor, wisely, did not try.