A Westminster budget experiment
Everyone wants a bigger slice.
You have to explain the cake.
You are the Chancellor. Set taxes, negotiate with departments, face an independent forecast and see whether your own benches are still speaking to you.
Open the red box ↓Inspired by Conservative and Labour budgets from 2024. All playable costs, forecasts and political scores are illustrative—not official estimates or predictions.
Satirical likenesses. Choose the face; set your political mandate separately below.
01 / Treasury negotiations
Changes are relative to the fictional baseline. A minus sign on a tax dial is a tax cut. Borrowing fills the gap; it is not tax revenue.
Choose an outlook to change supporter expectations. Apply its starter package to replace the dials, or keep your own package. All use the same UK fiscal arithmetic.
These are selected influences, not complete national systems or forecasts. Every option keeps the fictional UK Parliament and portrait choice.
02 / Independent scrutiny
The real OBR challenges draft policy costings and forecasts the economy and public finances. It assesses the government’s fiscal targets; it does not give permission to deliver a Budget. OBR: policy costings ↗
| Year | Receipts | Current spend | Investment | Borrowing | Current balance | Debt / GDP |
|---|
Current balance = receipts less current spending. A current surplus can coexist with borrowing for investment. Our two teaching tests are a non-negative current balance in year 5 and a falling debt/GDP ratio from year 4 to 5. They are not the full legal rules of either government.
03 / The politics of arithmetic
A budget can be affordable and unpopular, or popular and exposed to a bad forecast. These fictional reaction meters show tensions, not polling. All constituencies contain people with different interests.
Obtain a scrutiny note for the current package, then deliver it. You can proceed with failed fiscal tests and see the consequences.
Official figures checked on 15 September 2026. This is a curated snapshot, not an automatically updating feed. Each tile states its period and whether it is a reported estimate, forecast, budget or tax rate. Monthly releases lag the present; plans are not money already spent. These figures do not change the fictional game ledger.
Tax rates are not an average tax burden. The employee example is calculated from current rules; business costs vary with profits, payroll, reliefs and other taxes. The categories below overlap and must not be added together.
Inside the real red boxes
Spring Budget cut the main employee National Insurance rate from 10% to 8%, funded NHS productivity investment and continued the fuel-duty freeze. It also proposed revenue-raising measures, including replacing the non-dom regime.
The playable tension: a visible tax cut has a cost; hoped-for productivity gains take time and are not cash already in the bank.
Read Spring Budget 2024 ↗Autumn Budget increased employer National Insurance from 13.8% to 15% from April 2025 and lowered its payment threshold. It increased resource and capital spending and introduced rules targeting the current balance and net financial debt.
The playable tension: extra service funding must come from somewhere; raising employment taxes can put pressure on employers and workers.
Read Autumn Budget 2024 ↗Historical comparisons are selected 2024 examples, not a comprehensive audit or a statement of current rates. Fiscal rules and forecasts change. For newer official forecasts, consult the OBR forecast archive. Research checked 15 September 2026.
Distribution, growth responses and behavioural tax effects are not fully modelled. Donor, union and MP reactions are invented satire. No result predicts a real election or market response. Fiscal headroom is a forecast margin, not a pot of spendable cash.