Budd, Gus, Balls
HE has not always made it easy for himself. He inherited a chief economic adviser (and Second Permanent Secretary) who was known as the Treasury's conscience. This was Sir Alan Budd. He stood down in the autumn and has found a retirement career at the Bank, where he votes for higher interest rates. At the Treasury his place has not been filled. Gus O'Donnell, who was John Major's press secretary, has been put in charge of economics, but he is also the Treasury's man in Washington and has been trying to match up two jobs in two continents. In his absence, and no doubt at other times, the Chancellor relies on Ed Balls, the victim of Michael Hese!tine's pleasantry: It isn't Brown's, it's Balls!' This promising leader writer from the Financial Times did much of Mr Brown's economic homework and is now in all but name his chef de cabinet. Most decisions go through his office and some of them get stuck there.
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