Last week was the first post-election Budget from a newbie chancellor following a script dictated by his prime minister and advisers, who are all about optics and opportunism rather than prudence and pragmatism. One has to say that the huge announcements made on infrastructure spending would be a cause for celebration under normal circumstances; however, when they are declared in the teeth of a global crisis, you wonder whether the Treasury actually has enough control over the economy to find and invest the cash. 

We know that any spend on infrastructure takes 18 months to two years to impact the wider economy, but will government have the fiscal wiggle room post-coronavirus and in the middle of delayed Brexit negotiations, to deliver the funding and for it to affect the productivity figures as claimed in this Budget? 

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