For the UK economy, this budget is its Suez moment

Hammond may have called time on austerity but his money is too little, too late - with Brexit looming the weak economy needs to be put on war footing

The 1956 Suez crisis was the moment Britain had to wake up to the fact that it was no longer the force it once was. The November 2017 budget was its economic equivalent.

Forget the extra money to paper over the cracks in the NHS. Leave to one side the willingness to throw money at sorting out universal credit. The real story was not the latest attempt to boost home ownership but the news from the Office for Budget Responsibility on the state of the economy. This was little short of calamitous.

The Office for Budget Responsibility is the government's independent forecaster, which gives its verdict on the outlook for growth and the public finances twice a year.