If you’d have taken most of the announcements from the 2026 Budget and had them as departmental announcements, nobody would even have noticed.

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There are a couple of exceptions – the temporary extra 3% tax on bank profits, the rise in tax on income from savings and property, gambling tax perhaps – but for the most part this was minor tweaks today, promises of future change and a bit of padding.

Don’t get me wrong, having professionally watched every Budget since 2011, I definitely appreciated the brevity and lack of complexity. And if the aim was not to do anything noticeable to financial markets, then mission complete. FTSE 100 broadly the same, Sterling ok, and government bonds unbothered.

Let’s tackle the main bits first.

The bank tax was always coming. Nearly a decade on from the financial crisis, taxing banks will never........

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