When I met John Healey for the first time almost two months ago, I noticed he had a strange and distracting verbal tic.
He kept repeating that Britain’s economy needed ‘breathing space’.
It’s an oddly meaningless phrase, and one that the whole country is now likely all too familiar with after the Chancellor repeated it no fewer than ten times (I counted) in his soporific Budget speech.
The slogan is even emblazoned on the front of the Government’s ‘Red Book’, the document that contains all the fiscal small print and policy detail of the statement.
Breathing space or not, Healey’s Budget was a dispiriting
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