Budget day. A day of reckoning. High finance with Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor juggling truly staggering figures.
He does it all so calmly that it suggests confidence even as he warns us there are years, perhaps decades of penny-pinching pay-back stretching ahead.
It was a stopgap, playing for time exercise.
Freezing allowances will mean millions will pay more income tax by 2026.
The most significant, controversial, unlike Conservative move - was to raise the tax on company profits to 25 percent, delayed until 2023.
On the plus side, he found billions more to save and create jobs. taking the borrowing to £355 billion this year.
The millions still on furlough will continue to get 80 percent of their pay met until September and there is the long campaigned for money for self employed people.
Coronavirus, said Mr Sunak, has fundamentally changed our lives for years ahead.
He admitted his decisions were not popular but insisted that, though challenging, they were honest, positive and possible.
It was a unique budget day, the chamber as quiet as a dentist’s waiting room.
No cheering, order paper waving by Conservatives or head shaking by a boisterous opposition.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was even more subdued than usual. The government, he murmured, was just papering over the cracks.
A quiet end to an historic day.
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