<b>Aakar Patel:</b> The Budget speech as speech

I want to compare Mr Jaitley's speech to that of another finance minister's from a generation ago

The word fiscal has the same etymological root as fascist. There is to be some reduction in the deficit of the first. The second — fascism is “authoritarian, ultra-nationalist government and social organisation” — has not really seen any deficit in our times. The relationship between fiscus (“basket”) and fasces (“bundle”) could be argued over by pedants, and that would make for more interesting listening than the Budget speech telecast on Wednesday.

I do not mean the content, I hasten to add, because the full meaning of Budgets usually is revealed only in time. I mean the Budget speech as