A hard times chancellor with little to give away | Anne Perkins

Philip Hammond's funereal demeanour suited a man with few rabbits in his hat

The chancellor brings the air of an undertaker to the despatch box. His suits are dark, his expression glum and his sense of humour, although unexpectedly sharp, is deployed only sparingly. This is a chancellor for hard times, and in his unshowy way, hard times are what he predicted.

This chancellor is the antithesis of his predecessor George Osborne and so was his autumn statement. The only rabbit pulled from Philip Hammond's topper was that the number of opportunities for rabbit pulling - what the Treasury calls fiscal events - is to be cut from two to one. This was Hammond's first autumn statement, and it is to be his last.

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