The long run-up to the Budget gave rise to fevered and increasingly alarmist speculation about its contents. This descended into chaos as frantic lobbying by interested parties, dire warnings by exper

The Budget: the main points The Chancellor majored on ...

Companies in the news ...and how they were assessed

“All government leaders know what to do. They just don’t know how to get re-elected if they do it.” Jean-Claude Juncker, the former president of the European Commission, said little of note in his pol

“Is Britain having a collective nervous breakdown?” asks Camilla Cavendish in the Financial Times. Almost two-thirds of voters think we are heading in the wrong direction, while our government has “go

What happened In a series of media briefings, the ...