It is un­rea­son­able to as­sume the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion would have been able to find so­lu­tions to all the dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic chal­lenges and present them in its first bud­get state­ment.

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo did say that he had been prepar­ing for this as­sign­ment dur­ing the ten years he spent on the Op­po­si­tion bench­es. He brought a more en­gag­ing style to the read­ing of the bud­get, in­cor­po­rat­ing mem­bers of his po­lit­i­cal par­ty in repris­ing the cam­paign theme “every­body wins” in true ca­lyp­so style.

His man­ner light­ened the mood, fa­cil­i­tat­ing a con­tin­u­ous po­lit­i­cal at­tack whilst gen­er­at­ing some op­ti­mism. It was good the­atre.