THE general rule of thumb about budgets is this: those which are well received at the time seem to become unpopular soon afterwards and those which appear terrible as the Chancellor stands at the despatch box don’t turn out to be too bad in the long run.

Yesterday’s may be different.

It was certainly grim in the build-up but then that’s obviously an old political trick – make the warnings so dire that anything less than financial Armageddon is something of a relief.

You can read plenty of reaction to George Osborne’s first effort on this website and in today’s paper.

But the reality of the public sector squeeze is to be found on other pages, and that is the news that up to three-quarters of teaching assistants at Elmrise Primary School may be axed, their numbers falling from 23 to possibly as few as six.

Elmrise is already a failing school, slated by Ofsted for its failure to deliver an acceptable standard of education or to show the leadership and management to secure the necessary advances.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that standards at Elmrise could fall further – or at the very least, the job of making the vital improvements to the school is going to be that much harder.

But brace yourself for more of this across all areas of the public sector. This is the new order.

At least for now.