History would suggest Kwarteng’s hefty tax giveaway is a huge gamble

Chancellor's mini-budget supply-side reforms are going to be tested to the limits in months ahead

A struggling economy. An unpopular Conservative government. A dramatic change of course. Britain has been here before. Just like Reginald Maudling in the early 1960s and Tony Barber in the early 1970s, Kwasi Kwarteng has gone for broke, with a massive package of tax cuts designed to put Britain on a higher growth path.

The chancellor will be crossing his fingers that his experiment has a happier ending than those of his predecessors, neither of which ended well. It is one huge gamble on supply-side reforms boosting enterprise, tax cuts paying for themselves, and the financial markets remaining onside. The initial reaction from the City was not entirely reassuring.