The Big Picture for the forthcoming UK Budget that the media largely ignores

Budget coverage in the media is understandably all about the details. What taxes are going up or down? How do the OBR forecasts compare to last year or six months ago? Has the fiscal headroom gone up or down? In all this it is easy to lose the big picture. Yet when some media outlets do attempt to do big picture previews, they often get things very wrong. This post tries to correct that, and suggests why the Budget is unlikely to change that picture. The big picture presented in much of the media is one of general gloom, if not crisis. This is not confined to right wing media, or cliches from Andy Haldane. Here is the director of the Institute for Government talking about “the gravity of the fiscal position”. From this vibe you might think that the deficit is increasing, whereas in fact the government’s current balance (the key measure for the sensible fiscal rule) fell from a deficit of 2.5% of GDP in 2024/5 to a deficit of 1.5% in 2025/6. As I show below, when you look at other…