How is Kwasi Kwarteng, arguably the worst of 2022’s chancellors, filling his days? We know he’s alive, because he’s been spotted on the Tube, but he hasn’t spoken in the House of Commons chamber since he was sacked in October. Has he told his wife he’s not chancellor any more, or does he hide the newspapers? Perhaps he simply rides the Jubilee line all day, his packed lunch in his briefcase, before coming home to pretend he’s had another hard day cutting taxes and stimulating growth.

Jeremy Hunt’s family know exactly what his job is. His wife and children were up in the gallery, looking on proudly as he walked into the Commons, clutching a folder that we would soon learn contained one of the worst long-form rhetorical devices ever deployed in Parliament. The kids were sat next to Lee Anderson, so the experience will have been educational. Presumably Hunt had to explain some new words at bedtime, none of them “full capital expensing”.

On Budget day Prime Minister’s Questions, usually the Parliamentary main course, is relegated to the status of an amuse-bouche. Hunt walked in with Rishi Sunak, fresh back from California, having popped over to water the plants in his apartment and meet Joe Biden. He had also, he reminded us, used the weekend to handle a bank collapse and signed an agreement with Emmanuel Macron. “Delivering for the British people,” he said, to noisy support from the Tory benches. 

Labour’s Jess Philips did her best to take the wind out of his sails, pointing out that Sunak’s pledge that modern slavery laws will no longer protect trafficking victims will be used against women who have been brought to the country to be raped in brothels. It was a long question, but Conservative MPs couldn’t work out a way to heckle her without sounding tasteless. 

Sunak opted to patronise Philips. Helping trafficked women, he said, hadn’t been the main intention of the slavery legislation. It was probably for the best that he couldn’t see Theresa May, the woman who introduced the law, directly behind him, rolling her eyes and gesturing furiously in a way that suggested her recollection was a little different.

Everyone was waiting for the main event

Everyone was waiting for the main event. The chamber was packed, but some of the people who were key players just months ago were absent. It wasn’t just Kwarteng. There was no Boris Johnson — he won’t make an appearance for less than a quarter of a million these days — and no Liz Truss. Nor was there any sign of summer job chancellor Nadhim Zahawi. Chris Philp, who had been proudly on the frontbench in October, was skulking in the shadows behind the Speaker’s chair. Lurking rather suits Philp, who has the air of a Game of Thrones villain.

If the chancellor’s kids stayed awake through the statement, then they were doing better than the rest of us. Even the best Budget speeches have some slow sections, and this was not one of the best. Hunt opened by boasting about how much better off we all were than we had been when he took over the job. Perhaps it was a good thing that Kwarteng had stayed away. 

A third of the way through, we realised he had only just got to his theme, the “four pillars of our industrial strategy”. These, he explained proudly, “all start with the letter ‘E’”. They were, he went on, “Enterprise, Employment, Education and Everywhere”. Up in the press gallery we could feel our souls leaving our bodies. 

Gordon Brown’s Budget speeches were a pounding reminder that he was in charge and everything was brilliant. Alistair Darling’s were a white-knuckle ride through the horrors of the banking crisis. George Osborne’s drew political dividing lines all over the landscape. Hunt’s speech… well, let’s just say you shouldn’t listen to it while operating heavy machinery. Anything that involves four Es really ought to be more stimulating. Even the bits where he announced tax cuts for rich people didn’t really rouse his audience. 

As he headed towards the full hour, MPs began to slip away. Hearing that the ceiling on pension contributions had been lifted, 75-year-old Sir Christopher Chope rose and made his way out along the back row, presumably to begin a lucrative new career in cyber. 

“The declinists are wrong and the populists are right,” Hunt said, and the MPs behind him stirred themselves, realising he was winding up. “We stick to the plan because the plan is working.” And with those insipid words, he finished. 

Somewhere, possibly in a Tube carriage passing through Neasden, Kwasi Kwarteng unwrapped his sandwiches and took a thoughtful bite. His mini-budget speech had been much more exciting than that, which was a sort of comfort.