In its origins, the chancellorship was a relatively minor office, not even guaranteeing a seat in the Cabinet. Just as the prime ministership grew as an office from Wolsey under Henry VIII, so has the chancellor gradually increased his power, generation by generation, until a strong chancellor, like Gordon Brown, could almost equal even a strong prime minister.

Some Budgets are remembered because they turn out to be the starting point of an historic movement. In 1908 the original Budget was drafted by Asquith, who included in its proposals the creation of old age pensions. By the time the Budget speech came to be delivered, Asquith had become Prime Minister and had appointed Lloyd George as Chancellor. Lloyd George was the more aggressive man and his 1909 Budget extended the Liberal programme of social reform.

The House of Lords rejected the 1909 Budget, which led to two years of conflict between the two Houses before the Parliament Act, passed in 1911, took away the right of the Lords to amend or reject the Budget. Alistair Darling’s Budget faces many risks, but defeat in the Lords is not one of them.

Looking back, there have been few Budgets that sought to tackle the big issues by key changes in the balance of national finance. There are few 20th-century Budgets that turned out to be as important as Geoffrey Howe’s antiinflationary Budget in 1980. There were also three devaluations in the 20th century plus wartime devaluations and one return to the gold standard.

Churchill, despite the best arguments of Maynard Keynes, restored the convertibility of sterling into gold in his 1925 Budget, going back to the prewar rate. This Budget was at first well received but it became unpopular as unemployment rose. Six years later, when the new National Government in 1931 decided that it had to leave the gold standard, the decision was taken by a small committee, with the Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, in the chair. Similarly, the 1949 devaluation was a Cabinet decision. The Chancellor, Sir Stafford Cripps, gave reluctant assent from his sickbed. In 1967 the pound was again devalued, by Harold Wilson’s Government. The Chancellor, Jim Callaghan, was again reluctant; indeed he resigned on what he regarded as his personal failure. Again there was no Budget and no Budget debate.

In retrospect, it was Churchill’s popular Budget decision that was to prove a disaster, whereas the two Labour devaluations in 1949 and 1967 were right but unpopular, and were followed by electoral reverses. Labour is again at a difficult political moment coinciding with serious economic issues.

Budgets are usually expected to be important, and occasionally they are. Yesterday’s Budget may prove to be one of the important ones but, if so, it is likely to be for negative reasons. Much of the professional discussion was whether it would be a Keynesian or a classical Budget in its underlying theory.

The Treasury has become increasingly nervous about the problem of financing the national debt; the Bank of England is equally concerned. Some thought that Mr Darling would pluck up his courage and make a decision. He would either produce a Budget designed to restore confidence by reducing the risk of a debt crisis to follow the recession crisis. On the other hand, the influence of Mr Brown went the other way. He was closely allied at the G20 meeting with President Obama’s call for the biggest possible global stimulus.

No one was sure whether the Budget would concentrate on debt and restoring confidence or on the Keynesian policy of accelerating recovery by further stimulus. There is little doubt what Keynes would have recommended. It is all there in the 1936 General Theory.

“If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with bank notes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which were then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez faire to dig the notes up again, there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is.”

Keynes rammed home his argument: “Pyramid building, earthquakes, even wars may serve to increase wealth, if the education of our statesmen on the principles of the classical economics stands in the way of anything better.” By the term “classical economics”, Keynes, in this following Karl Marx, means David Ricardo and his followers.

Was this a Keynesian Budget? Obviously not. Whatever hopes Mr Brown and President Obama may have had a month ago, the Treasury and the Bank have moved away from Keynesian experiments. The national debt has become too alarming. Was it Ricardian? Again, obviously not. This Budget will need £620 billion of funding over four years, a borrowing requirement that constitutes a high-risk strategy. If it does prove to be an important Budget, it will be because it has not tackled either the recession issue or the debt issue; the Chancellor has followed a middle course with no serious analysis of its possible consequences.

In 2009, Alistair Darling seems to have taken a decision not to decide. He has not chosen the considerable risks of a fully Keynesian policy of reflation through government borrowing and spending; that had seemed until recently to be the Prime Minister’s policy. The Chancellor has not taken the opposite political risk of a serious attempt to reduce the budget deficit by increases in taxation and reductions in expenditure.

Walking down the middle of the motorway still has a very serious risk. In economics there is no safety in the centre. No one can be sure that there will be enough confidence to lend the £620 billion of debt that will have to be issued during the next four years.

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