UK Treasury chief seeks drama-free budget day amid strikes

By DANICA KIRKA
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — U.K. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt will stage a moment of high political theater as he unveils his budget to cheering and jeering lawmakers. It comes Wednesday as consumers demand more help with the high cost of living and workers press for higher wages with strikes at schools, hospitals and the offices of civil servants. Even as Hunt plays his historically scripted role at the House of Commons, he will try to be as boring as possible. That’s because the last time the government staged a similar “fiscal event,” the mini-budget presented by Hunt’s predecessor last September, it set off an economic catastrophe by promising huge tax cuts without saying how it would pay for them.