Burnham’s former economic adviser gives Budget a four out of 10

One of Andy Burnham s former economic advisers has given John Healey s Budget a four out of 10, warning there remained a 50 per cent chance the UK economy will be in worse shape next year than it is now. Andy Haldane, who for years served as chief economist at the Bank of England, told the BBC there was nothing in the Chancellor s maiden fiscal event to reduce the credibility gap this government faces with the bond market and its concerns over Britain s fiscal path. It was a Budget with a tincey bit more spending, a tincey bit more tax and nothing really that would give us any greater confidence that those debts and deficit could be brought down if anything those deficits and debts were revised upwards he said, adding: We remain in a position of quite acute fiscal precarity. Haldane was held up by some in Andy Burnham s camp as one of three economic heavyweights helping shape the Prime Minister s plans for government, though his involvement never evolved into a formal