John Healey’s first budget was a “modest” affair, says the FT, with the chancellor deferring the biggest decisions on welfare and defence spending until next autumn. The most attention-grabbing policy was a £100 handout for 20 million households to help with the rising cost of energy bills, paid for in part by tax rises on landlords, banks and gambling firms. In interviews this morning Healey denied shirking responsibility, saying he has funded the Defence Investment Plan and vowing to cut “unsustainable” welfare spending before the next election. The chancellor said reforms to reduce the welfare bill would be set out by the end of the year, including being “tough” on those who refuse help. King Charles joined a street dance parade in the Bahamas yesterday on the second day of his Caribbean tour. Flag-waving crowds cheered as the monarch bobbed in time to the beat, surrounded by dancers wearing sequins, feathers and tropical fruit necklaces. At one point he sought out a cocktail stand, telling the owner: “Save one of those for me later.”

John Healey’s milquetoast budget

Last year, says Will Lloyd in the FT, Rachel Reeves offered up what she called a “smorgasbord budget”. With John Healey, her Gradgrindian replacement, “you’d be lucky to get half a pork scratching”. The chancellor yesterday put off all the spending decisions that really matter – defence, welfare, energy – until next year. Instead of the “radical rewiring of the state” promised by Andy Burnham, we were given a “laundry list of regional bungs”: a few million quid for a market hall in Stafford, a bit of cash for a science park in North Wales. “Something about an airport in Doncaster.” The markets “barely flickered”, which will have been a relief to No 11. But the lack of ambition, the “fiscal minimalism”, was breathtaking.

This was effectively the “Martin Lewis budget”, says Aditya Chakrabortty in The Guardian – a set of tiny cash-saving measures of the sort you find in the MoneySavingExpert founder’s weekly email. Many of the most eye-catching policies – scrapping standing charges on gas bills, shielding more pensioners from income tax, helping poorer households with energy bills – came straight from Lewis’s wishlist. Healey even hosted the broadcaster in Downing Street for a “personal briefing” yesterday morning. Good politics, perhaps – Lewis “may be the closest thing Britain has to a genuine national treasure”. But even those of us who want Burnham to succeed will look at these “micro-policies” and conclude that his critics were right. He’s all talk. Kemi Badenoch put it best: “The prime minister came to power promising to end 40 years of neoliberalism, and instead we got 4p off gherkins.”

🎄🗳️ An early election – possibly as soon as December – looks more and more likely, says Tim Shipman in The Spectator. Burnham’s major policy announcements – social care, electoral reform, reversing Brexit – can happen only with a new mandate. And this “milquetoast” budget appears to have been designed not to disrupt Labour’s steady climb in the polls, where they currently sit eight points ahead of the Conservatives and 10 clear of Reform UK. The Tories are still “woefully unprepared”, with many candidates not yet selected for key seats, and moving quickly would limit Reform’s ability to spend its recent £72m donations windfall. Burnham has ruled out an early election, of course. But don’t be surprised if he rolls the dice.