Burnham promised big change – where was it? Instead we got the Martin Lewis budget | Aditya Chakrabortty

The financial guru’s fingerprints are all over John Healey’s red book – but Lewis is not a politician. His everyday fixes can’t meet this turbulent moment

Was this Andy Burnham’s budget – the bold vision of a new prime minister who burns with a passion to topple “40 years of neoliberalism”? Fat chance. Was it John Healey’s budget – the repair job of a cautious chancellor fretting about record-high taxes, £3tn of public debt and an economy stuck in first gear? Little sign of that.

This budget was cast in the image of a man who isn’t in Burnham’s government or even a Labour politician – but who appears almost every day on TV, on podcasts and is probably better known than 649 of the MPs at Westminster. Today’s budget was the Martin Lewis budget.

Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist and the Guardian’s senior economics commentator

Aditya Chakrabortty will be online at 2pm GMT (9am EDT) on Friday 30 October to answer your questions on the big ideas around economics, society and democracy for our Conversations series. Send your questions to conversations@theguardian.com or join the discussion from 8am.

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