The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last week forced the Chancellor and Bank of England to spend the weekend looking at ways to prevent contagion. But the private purchase of SVB UK announced at the start of the week means much of the focus of this week’s Budget can now switch back to domestic policy issues. Cast your mind back to November when Chancellor Jeremy Hunt was under a lot of pressure to present a fiscal plan which stabilised the public finances across the medium term. In truth, markets had already begun to stabilise by the time of the Autumn Statement, and Hunt was able to strike a balance between offering ... (full story)