"Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Neither actually. It's a bizarre hybrid, an altered hallucinogenic universe. Where up is down and down is up. Everything always slightly out of reach. A world otherwise known as the day after the budget'. A day when politicians and amateur commentators are guaranteed to talk more doggybollox than on any other day of the year. A day when everyone gets their 15 minutes of shame."
"This year that presenter was Nick Robinson. Amol Rajan must have been gutted to miss out. He, also, is not short of the self-belief there is no job he can't do better than anyone else. Perhaps next year the BBC will run a gameshow called So You Think You Could Be Chancellor? for all its Today presenters. The winner gets to be interviewed by the runner-up on the day after the night before."
"It's not many chancellors who get a guarded thumbs up from the leftwing of the Labour party and the financial markets. In fact, that might even be a fiscal first. OK, so all the rightwing politicians and media had wasted no time in trashing the budget as the worst in living memory, but they were always going to say that regardless of what was in it."
After Budget 2025, political and media reactions became a surreal, performative spectacle where commentary was exaggerated and partisan. Presenters on flagship programmes treated the chancellor's interview slot as a personal mandate, with Nick Robinson securing the prime spot and Amol Rajan notably sidelined. Satirical suggestions arose for a BBC gameshow to determine who could run the economy. Rachel Reeves received an unusual guarded endorsement from both the Labour left and financial markets, while rightwing critics condemned the budget predictably. Observers urged healthy scepticism toward partisan responses, noting Robinson's attempt to remain open-minded amid performative post-budget commentary.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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