British voters are ready for a green, game-changing budget. What they’ll get is more austerity

theguardian.com:

T here was a time when the Institute of Directors was a hotbed of Thatcherism. Its members were gung-ho for the free market, tax cuts, privatisation and economic liberalism in its purest form. But that was in the 1980s and early 1990s and it is a different story now. Earlier this week, the IoD called on the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, to be more than simply a bean counter in next week’s budget and urged the government to come up with its own version of Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

This is some change of heart. The IRA is a $370bn (£312bn) package of protectionism, state aid and subsidies designed to galvanise American business in the fight against climate change. Where once the IRA would once have been everything it loathed, here was the IoD warning that “short-term budgetary concerns” should not be allowed to trump the “strategic imperative of establishing market leadership positions in green business”.

The IoD – and other business groups such as the Confederation of British Industry – are likely to be disappointed. Hunt will come up with some modest measures to stimulate investment and boost employment next week but the budget is not going to be the gamechanger business is demanding.

The chancellor’s priorities are to cut the UK’s budget deficit, to take no risks with inflation and to keep the financial markets sweet. After the turmoil caused by Liz Truss’s whirlwind premiership last autumn, the message will be that grownups are back in charge. Financial orthodoxy has returned. The Treasury is back in control of the public finances. The Bank of England is taking action to bring down inflation.

Voters, Hunt and Rishi Sunak believe, want a government that is prudent with the nation’s finances rather than one committed