WILLIAM GLADSTONE’S famous scarlet budget box, now frayed and battered, will be used for one last time next week when Conservative chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne presents his budget.
The wooden box was made for Gladstone around 1860 and has been used by every occupant of No 11 Downing Street since, with the exception of Labour’s James Callaghan and Gordon Brown.
The National Archives had hoped the box would not be used again, but Mr Osborne pushed hard to be allowed use it for the traditional photograph outside No 11 as he heads to the House of Commons to present his budget, likely to be one of the toughest for decades. Initially rebuffed, he won out – for this time only. “We’ve had a close look at the box and given the fragile state it’s in, we believe now is the time to retire the box from public life,” said Archives director Oliver Morley. “If it isn’t retired it may end up being destroyed completely. Having served chancellors for 150 years, it is now time for the box to claim its own place in history.”
Time has not been kind to the box, which is made from ram’s leather, lined in black satin and locked from the bottom to guarantee it is locked before being carried. “It really is in a very bad way. Bits of leather have broken off and if you look closely you can see it has been repaired with balsa wood,” said the treasury.
Mr O’Callaghan and Mr Brown had their own boxes made, in an attempt to portray an image of modernity, though Mr Brown’s successor in the treasury, Alistair Darling, preferred tradition and brought the Gladstone box.
Conservative chancellor Norman Lamont held it aloft outside No 11 in the early 1990s, but it carried only a half-pint of whiskey.
His budget speech was carried in a plastic bag by his then aide, William Hague, now foreign secretary. “It would have been a major disaster if the bag had fallen open,” he said later.
