For years now, Britain has been pretending that the numbers add up. Each Budget rolls around, and we get the same routine: tweak a threshold, freeze an allowance, promise not to touch the “big” taxes, and hope the public doesn’t notice the bigger picture.

But the truth is simple: the UK’s fiscal house isn’t in order and we’re running out of road to ignore it.

Debt has exploded over the last two decades. Not because of one crisis, but because our economy hasn’t grown fast enough to pay for the promises politicians keep making.

We’ve ended up with a tax system that punishes aspiration, a welfare system that traps people out of work, and a health service that costs more each year without delivering commensurate results. If we’re serious about fixing it, the solution isn’t another round of stealth taxes.

We need three things: a proper fiscal buffer so the Budget stops lurching from one “unexpected” hole to the next; a growth strategy that actually boosts the country’s productive capacity, more people working, fewer disincentives, childcare that works, and tax rates that don’t slam the brakes on middle earners; and finally, the honesty to deal with the big structural pressures, including health spending and the long-term sustainability of the state pension.

These aren’t easy decisions. But easy decisions are what got us here. Either we take responsibility now, on our terms, or the markets will eventually take the decisions for us on theirs. And that’s a far more painful place to be.