Alistair Darling’s maiden Budget was greeted with sighs of relief. The chancellor should not mistake these for gasps of enthusiasm. He delivered a speech devoid of significant fiscal changes. In doing so, he avoided a repetition of the unseemly retreat that followed last October’s tax plans, in­tended for an election campaign that did not happen. At first sight, Wednesday’s proposals do not seem to make matters worse. But this achievement is modest and does not entitle the government to bask in the claims to financial rectitude that were such a feature of Gordon Brown’s time at the Treasury.

In the current international uncertainty Mr Darling’s caution is understandable. Worse than inaction would have been a wide-ranging set of fiscal changes predicated on the basis that the UK would sail through the global economic slowdown. His alternative – a model of studious inactivity – would have more merit without the heady optimism in the growth forecasts.