This Tory budget is Keynes reborn | Will Hutton

I have argued strongly for a decade against the Tories' fiscal policy. Now, for this shameless chancellor, spending and investment are suddenly common sense

Britain's national debt over the past decade has always been a non-problem. For most of the last 300 years, it has been very much higher as a share of national output. Our public debt has been well-managed by the Bank of England, so that the average duration of government bonds is 15 years: there is close to zero chance of a crisis of refinancing or of confidence in public debt. At current rates of interest the overall cost of debt service is among the lowest in our history.

Britain has thus plenty of room to spend and borrow, and there was no need for the draconian Cameron-Osborne austerity squeeze in which cumulative cuts in public spending in many areas of government exceeded 40%. Deficit reduction could have been more measured and the pain mitigated. It was baloney from top to bottom - a cruel hoax that was one of the reasons for the Brexit vote, imposing wanton and needless suffering. I and other Keynesian economists have made these arguments in vain for more than a decade - indeed for most of my working life. So Wednesday's budget was an extraordinary moment.

Yet a rubicon has been crossed. Keynesianism has been restored to its proper place in British public life