Budget 2014: George Osborne's record is a dismal failure even in his own terms

The chancellor's claim to be 'winning' is bizarre. He has presided over the longest fall in living standards since the 1870s

Most budgets have little impact on either the economy or most people's lives, and are soon forgotten. Ministers love them, of course, because they provide an unmatched opportunity to parade in front of the cameras and dominate the news for days on end. Titbits are leaked in advance to a pliant media, as a vision of economic plenty and technocratic cunning is conjured up in what amounts to a glorified government spinfest.

Marginal changes to duty on this or that, far outweighed in real life by day-to-day corporate decision-making, are heralded as acts of high drama, while economic forecasts revealed every year to be as good as worthless are hailed as the work of prophecy. So it was yesterday, as George Osborne threw off the burden of his omnishambles budget, to claim the mantle of fiscal triumph.