A shackled economy, no long-term vision for growth — and no help for London

First the good news. Rachel Reeves did at least manage to avoid crashing the bond market. Admittedly that is an incredibly low bar. Only one of her predecessors — Kwasi Kwarteng three years ago — has managed to wriggle under it in recent years.

The small four basis points fall in 10-year gilt yields at the time of writing immediately after this most chaotic of Budgets means that Reeves can pat herself on the back for one thing. There will be no fiscal crisis this week at least. Headroom has been bolstered to a bond vigilante defying £22billion. That should be enough.

But this has been an odd Budget, from the ludicrously prolonged lead-in time to the farce of the OBR leak. But far more important than ritual noise around her statement was the almost total absence of a long-term growth vi