Torrents of pain and therapy at the institute

Hammond's nemeses at the Institute for Fiscal Studies put the budget on the couch and find relief only in the demise of the autumn statement

The geeks fight back. Experts may have had a bit of a kicking over the last six months but it's looking like they are going to have the last laugh. Or at least chuckle. Laughing may be a social skill too far for an economist.

Having had a night to go through the chancellor's autumn statement, the Institute for Fiscal studies, the UK's leading independent economic thinktank, had convened in an airless basement - daylight and the IFS are not on speaking terms - off London's Tottenham Court Road to deliver their verdict.

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