Second, the budget must be pro-growth. The biggest cause of higher borrowing is expected to be the judgment by the OBR that the UK’s post-financial-crisis stagnation will persist. The government is right to try to find policy that might turn this around. But even the OBR’s more pessimistic view of growth is likely to be better than we’ve seen since the pandemic. So, as the Queen of Hearts said to Alice, the OBR will say to the chancellor: “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”