If John Healey’s looking for a political narrative to frame his Budget, perhaps he could borrow from AI behemoth Anthropic.

The Claude-maker’s extraordinary IPO prospectus insists that for all the risks and uncertainty surrounding the technology and economics of AI, their approach will be “bold but sane.” In fact, the full quote is that “in general, we will aim to be bold but sane,” allowing for a few periods where they could be either timid or mad.

On second thoughts, perhaps Healey should ignore them. But how will he present his red box debut?

George Osborne is credited as being the most political chancellor since Gordon Brown (which can be taken as a criticism or a compliment) meaning he understood the importance of using fiscal and economic decisions to force arguments, define the terms of debate and underline the governing mission.

What we’ve heard from Healey so far is that he wants to deliver a “breathing space” Budget. This sounds to me like more of a holding statement than a statement of intent. Analysts are already suggesting that today’s big event risks kicking tough decisions into the long grass.

The Budget matters less than Burnham’s ten year plan

The ever-expanding welfare bill will be left untouched, and we don’t expect any reform to the grinding system of taxes, riddled with perverse incentives and scandalous stealth levies. Instead, we’ll hear more about reducing the tariffs on gherkins and funding anti-misogyny training at work. Healey says he wants to offer breathing space for households and businesses, but it’s clear the Budget’s main focus will be to carve out political breathing space for Andy Burnham.

To really understand the Prime Minister’s agenda, we need to look beyond the Budget. Today’s statement will not be much less important than Burnham’s highly-anticipated ten year plan (expect details of that later next month) and it won’t be as consequential as next year’s spending review.

Labour is also blocked in by the party’s 2024 manifesto (which ruled out changes to income tax or VAT) and by the tax and spend decisions of Rachel Reeves, who has already squeezed another £60bn a year out of the private sector.

However Healey presents today’s decisions – whether it’s breathing space, steady as she goes or do no harm – it will serve merely as the hors d’oeuvres for the full menu of Burnham’s ambition. To find out the price of that, we’ll need to wait for the next election.