Attention Institute for Fiscal Studies!

Attention BBC!

Attention Guardian, Telegraph and all you other grown-up papers: there was no 'emergency Budget' earlier this summer.

It was just, you know, a regular Budget, albeit the second of the year.

There was no emergency other than the Tories' need to fulfil an election promise to give the gorgeous and pouting George Osborne his first big moment in front of the Commons within 50 days of the party taking power. 

Nowhere in British constitutional law was there a requirement for the newly elected government to hold its own Budget – financial crisis or not.

The 'emergency Budget' was nothing but the creation of Conservative policy makers and spin doctors eager to get bad news out of the way as soon as possible.

It. Was. Just. A. Budget.

There. Was. No. Emergency.

Why is that so difficult for supposedly intelligent people to understand?

• Blog