The 5 worst Chancellors of all time - and Rachel Reeves isn't number one

And they used to be men who knew the value of a pound and the danger of debt, building the nation's fortunes with sense. But in the modern day, the chancellor has become something of a plaything for sloganeering ideologues, people who see the budget as a performance, not a duty.

Here are five of the worst offenders, the men and women who confused generosity with wisdom, and left Britain all the poorer for it.

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He turned the proud Treasury virtue of thrift into the performance of compassion, and in doing so turned dependency into a national habit. Beneath the polish and the practised smile lay a simple truth: Sunak governed like a social democrat, just with better tailoring. The result is a Britain hooked on subsidy, drowning in tax, and led by a man who called himself prudent while spending like a pop star.

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She promises "stability", which in practice means inertia, and continues in a bizarre crusade that so far has seen farmers, parents, pensioners and small business owners in her crosshairs. Her plans are built on confiscation, as she tries to convince herself of the same old Labour illusion: that prosperity can be planned by the very people who have never created it.

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Five Chancellors, but perhaps one unbroken lesson: every fiscal folly begins with good intentions, but the bill ends up being added to someone else's tab. Britain's greatness was built by thrift, discipline and a belief in enterprise. By the buccaneers of business, not the budgetary bureaucrats of Whitehall. We need a Chancellor who knows that prudence is not meanness, and generosity is not a form of governance. Until then, the Exchequer will remain what it has too often become: a monument to clever people spending other people's cash.