George Osborne keeps austerity in mind for his eighth budget

The easiest route for the chancellor will be to ladle out a few modest tax cuts paid for by stealth taxes

Budgets have their own rhythm. Chancellors like to marry economics and politics and that means getting all the bad news out of the way early in a parliament so that there are goodies to be handed out when an election is looming.

Governments that break this rule tend to run into trouble so, in normal circumstances, George Osborne's red box would be a full-blooded package of tax increases and spending cuts.

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