Snake oil on steroids: the dishonesty at the heart of Jeremy Hunt’s budget | Richard Partington

Unfunded pledges and election gimmicks - from Tories or Labour - are last thing Britain needs

Before his budget last week, Jeremy Hunt said he knew voters could see through gimmicks. And we are not going to do gimmicks on Wednesday". Fast forward and what did the chancellor offer? A tax-cutting budget where taxes were still actually rising, and the promise of more funding for public services grounded in a 20bn austerity drive.

Having made very few new pledges that hadn't been leaked to the media, the most attention-grabbing promise Hunt made was to declare an ambition to abolish employee national insurance - an unfunded commitment worth more than 40bn; equivalent to the annual transport budget.