ALL Budgets unravel over time, but some do so more quickly than others. Daylight intrudes upon the magic Chancellors believe they have woven, turning their grand notions to dust.

Philip Hammond knows this better than most, having witnessed his Budget of March this year fall apart within days of its delivery. This week’s effort, being a Goldilocks affair, neither too bold nor too timid, looked as though it had more staying power. Yet initial uncertainty over whether Mr Hammond had crafted a Budget equal to the challenges of the times, not least the downgrading of growth forecasts for the next five years, has grown. What were murmurs of concern are fast becoming shouts of alarm.

Among the loudest of those voices yesterday was the Institute for Fiscal Studies, an independent think tank which has a solid reputation for being the bearer of uncomfortable post-Budget truths. Its assessment of the Budget and the forecasts on which it was based makes for wintry reading. By 2021, says the IFS, average earnings will be lower in real terms than at the time of the 2008 financial crash. Looking further into the future, the national debt will not return to pre-crash levels until well past the 2060s.

Another think tank, the Resolution Foundation, says the UK is on course for the longest period of falling living standards since records began in the 1950s, with productivity growth set to be the worst since the early 1800s.

Far from feeling they have never had it so good, the average worker is left worrying how much worse things will become not just for themselves, but for their children and grandchildren.

It is little wonder that Mr Hammond and the Prime Minister took on extra duties yesterday as cheerleaders. Mrs May said she recognised the pressures facing families, and had acted to relieve them through such measures as the freeze on fuel duty. Her Chancellor reminded interviewers that forecasts were just that: they could be right, or wrong, and it was the Government’s job to make sure the latter scenario applied by tackling the productivity crisis, and boosting confidence about Brexit.

Mr Hammond is correct in his analysis of the problem. What is in doubt is his ability to do much about it, particularly when it comes to Brexit. The biggest complaint from business about the way the Government is handling Brexit is the uncertainty being generated. Firms need to plan ahead, but they feel unable to do so because so much is still up in the air. For businesses read every family in the country.

Both the Chancellor and the Prime Minister would do well to cheerlead a little less and listen rather more to the genuine feelings of fear and uncertainty that exist in homes and workplaces. Those “just about managing” families Mrs May promised to help when she entered 10 Downing Street have not gone away. Nor do they only exist outwith Scotland, something the Finance Secretary would do well to bear in mind as he puts the finishing touches to his own Budget.