Tell us the knock-on effect from the Budget

Paul Johnson of the IFS tweets: “This if the first major Budget I can remember where there have been NO major announcements that weren’t pre-briefed….I think we knew every major change before Mr Hunt stood up.”

I believe the move to abolish the £1m Lifetime pension allowance was new – a plan that makes a difference to less than 10,000 wealthy people, so hardly qualifies as levelling up.

That aside, Johnson is right. We knew all of this.

The pre-briefing is a huge problem for hacks expected to tweet and live blog the “news” and find fresh angles for tomorrow’s paper.

This ought to be a great opportunity for flaks and their clients to get coverage.

Some understand our needs and do it very well. There’s handy stuff we can trust, cut, and paste. And thoughts we wouldn’t have had ourselves.

And a lot of it is repetitive drudge which offers mealy-mouthed opinions, awash with clichés.

My inbox this afternoon is full of damp squibs, mixed bags and missed opportunities.

Usually on budget day we get at least 10 releases that tell us the devil is in the detail, but don’t bother to get into either devils or details.

What we really want is a direct opinion on something very specific. Something that explains why that measure or cut won’t do what the Chancellor says it will.

We want the knock-on effects, in other words. The effects we can sort-of see.

We’re still paying attention for the next two days, and the Sunday’s will feel they need at least one Budget effort.

So there’s time…

Lastly, my favourite tweet today is a shout out to journalists trying to write about the budget childcare proposals, while their children run riot at home due to the school strikes.

The Chancellor didn’t touch on this issue.