It is not every day that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is compared to a saint. Unfortunately for Philip Hammond, the comparison is not a positive one. It is not that his Budget is full of holes, like Saint Sebastian. Nor has he been fed to the lions, like an early Christian martyr.

No, instead he has been compared to Saint Augustine and his famous prayer: “Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.”

In this case it applies to the Budget. Robert Chote, head of the Office for Budget Responsibility, said the phrase reminded him of the Chancellor: he always seems to promise short-term spending and longer-term austerity – only to repeat the formula a year later, so the austerity never arrives. “The concern is that if you loosen fiscal policy today, but promise to tighten tomorrow, tomorrow never comes,” Chote said. “St Augustine remains the patron saint of fiscal policy.”

Back in 2013 and 2014, tough spending plans were set out for 2018-19. But each year those were loosened, so now these will be years of extra spending, with all of the planned tightening forgotten. The public finances were supposed to be in balance by 2015, under George Osborne’s initial plans back in 2010. Now the idea is to get in the black by the middle of the 2020s, though that too is far from certain.