The Guardian view on budget 2017: a missed opportunity | Editorial

Philip Hammond has admitted that seven years of obsessing about the public sector deficit and shrinking the state has left the economy enfeebled and smaller than before the crisis. But he continues to put ideology above evidence
The last seven years has been an experiment in politics; testing a hypothesis about whether you could cut your way to growth. Philip Hammond’s budget suggests that you cannot. The government’s argument has been that only a programme of rigid deficit reduction