Every budget needs a narrative, a rhetorical motif that underpins the numbers. It is more about the framing than the facts. It is about how people feel when the two budgetary ministers finish their speeches.  Do people feel better or worse off? Are they happy with how tax revenues are being deployed? Are they content with the financial strategy that the government is proposing? Has it changed their voting preference? Are they annoyed, happy, or, perhaps, agnostic?   They are uneasy questions with no easy answers. Budgets are intricate. They are part populism, part prudence, and part pragmatism. That is why…

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