:: By veteran political journalist Chris Moncrieff
Budget Day was always Westminster's version of Royal Ascot - top hats, tails and tiaras.
But there was no finery on parade when George Osborne delivered his first Budget - the practice of dressing up for the most important day in the Parliamentary calendar died out some 30 years ago.
One Labour MP Leo Abse used to have specially-tailored suits for the occasion. He would stride, like a peacock, into the chamber, amid cheers from all sides, reminiscent of Laurence Olivier making a grand entrance as Henry V.
It may be Mr Osborne's first Budget but it will mark the last appearance of the battered old Budget box which was made for Gladstone in 1860 and has served most Chancellors since. The authorities say it is too fragile to be used again.
The first Chancellor not to use this scarlet briefcase was James Callaghan who in 1965 and 1966 used a "vulgar brown valise" bearing the monogram EIIR. That, too, was abandoned and the Tories returned to the original. But after 1997 Gordon Brown had a new budget bag made by young craftsmen.
Alistair Darling reverted to the original Budget box.
Gladstone, who served a record 12 years as Chancellor, was said to hug the bag to his breast "with a kind of affectionate yearning suggesting the love of a mother for an infant". But more likely it was to keep the Budget secrets from the prying eyes of Queen Victoria.
When Norman Lamont was Chancellor in the early 1990s, the bag which was waved at photographers outside No 11 contained a bottle of whisky, while the speech itself was carried in a plastic bag by his then aide, William Hague. "It would have been a major disaster if the bag had fallen open," Hague said later.
© 2012 The Press Association Limited
