KEVIN MAGUIRE: 'Brits wait to see what John Healey's first Budget will reveal - but moment may be overshadowed'

Budgets are significant moments in our nation’s life but will John Healey’s first one be overshadowed by other events? Deranged US President Donald Trump starting a never-ending war with Iran, in turn triggering scorching fuel price rises, has struck blows against Britain vastly more expensive than a Chancellor’s fiddling. Landmark welfare reviews, including Alan Milburn’s deep dive into one million drifting young and Stephen Timms’ probe of £28billion Pip payments, will be published after the Budget. As will a White Paper on Rewiring the State. The proposals on how power will be decentralised from Whitehall is the obsession of a former Greater Manchester Mayor straining to funnel influence as PM to his old self. We await the state of rabbits, healthy or mangy, that will be pulled from the Chancellor’s red box on Wednesday. But those yearning for radical change are likely to be disappointed when an irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power is off the agenda. That is not to be sniffy about anticipated help with those energy bills for lower income households or for small businesses, including steps to regenerate ailing High Streets and shopping centres. Or to applaud booming oil and gas companies and banks paying a fairer share of tax on profits. Chucking good money after bad at an unbelievably wasteful Ministry of Defence isn’t a move I would praise, but it is to be expected from a former Defence Secretary who fired an assassination letter at Keir Starmer. Healey’s caution jars with line manager Andy Burnham’s messianic visions, the steady-as-he-goes approach failing to set pulses racing though Reform, Tory and other rivals will still hyperventilate. Oppositions always do. Baby steps instead of a giant leap forward will leave Healey under assault from the left, right and centre. We are about to discover the resilience of a Labour great survivor from the Blair days through Brown, Miliband, Corbyn and Starmer to emerge as Chancellor under Burnham. Substance and style both matter. Healey is preparing for brutal contact with the real world.