Burnham promised big change – where was it? Instead we got the Martin Lewis budget | Aditya Chakrabortty

The financial guru’s fingerprints are all over John Healey’s red book – but Lewis is not a politician. His everyday fixes can’t meet this turbulent moment

Was this Andy Burnham’s budget – the bold vision of a new prime minister who burns with a passion to topple “40 years of neoliberalism”? Fat chance. Was it John Healey’s budget – the repair job of a cautious chancellor fretting about record-high taxes, £3tn of public debt and an economy stuck in first gear? Little sign of that.

This budget was cast in the image of a man who isn’t in Burnham’s government or even a Labour politician – but who appears almost every day on TV, on podcasts and is probably better known than 649 of the MPs at Westminster.