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Some 84 days after announcing the date of her second Budget, Rachel Reeves, Britain’s chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister), will finally unveil her plans next Wednesday.
The intervening period has been unlike any previous Budget. Once, chancellors entered a period of “purdah,” during which they made no public policy pronouncements. This was to maintain the integrity not only of the Budget process but also stability in financial markets and was strictly adhered to.
Indeed, Hugh Dalton, a predecessor from Reeves’s Labour Party, resigned in November 1947 after sharing sensitive details of his Budget with a journalist before announcing it to the House of Commons. The measures, including raising duty on a pint of beer by a penny (78p in today’s money), were published before he delivered his speech.
Even recently, the best the newspapers could expect was a picture of the chancellor walking their dog shortly before the big day (Nigel Lawson, who held the post from 1983 to 1989, particularly liked this and even named one of his dogs “Budget.”)
