LAST week’s Budget was nothing less than a deliberate slap in the face to all those who were hoping for some relief from the austerity agenda, as the Chancellor added calculated insult to repeated injury.

It was widely trailed in the media that the Tories were going to lift the public-sector pay cap after pressure from all sides, including their backbenchers, but as it turned out there was nothing concrete on offer for working people, no real money on the table, only vagueness, evasion and endless reviews.

The only difference between this Chancellor and the previous one is that of style not substance. Where George Osborne could best be described as a tin of gloss — superficially painting over the cracks in our broken economy — Philip Hammond is the tin of matt, hoping to hide the worst lumps and bumps with repeated applications of more of the same.

Either way they’re both the same shade of Tory austerity blues. The best way to grow the economy and improve productivity is to invest and support workers, to listen to those on the front line and give them a pay rise, but this government is all talk and no action. Not so much “compassionate” conservatism as zombie conservatism.

Instead — as fat cat pay continues to soar, and the bonus culture never seems to extend to front-line workers — the measures to support working people and vulnerable people in the Budget are meagre, lacklustre and dismal.

Let’s begin with those starting out on the world of work. I refuse to recognise the Tory definition of a living wage; it’s simply the minimum wage renamed.

When the actual rise per hour is 15p for 16 to 17-year-olds, 20p for apprentices and 30p for 18 to 25-year-olds, all they’re doing is maintaining the inequality gap for young people doing the same job as over-25s.

So much for helping young people, and the Tories’ stamp duty gimmick was exposed as a fiscal failure immediately by the Office for Budget Responsibility.

The distance that most young people are from decently priced rental accommodation, never mind home ownership, isn’t beyond the comprehension of Tory MP’s — they know from being repeatedly challenged on this, but they choose not to tackle it.

It’s the same with the benefits system as more and more evidence is emerging around the devastating impact of universal credit roll-out and the continued attacks on disabled people.

I now sit on the work and pensions select committee and it was ironic that on the morning of Budget day we heard evidence from claimants and supporting agencies about the impact of employment support allowance (ESA) and personal independence payments (PIP).

I was pleased when Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Minister David Gauke appeared in front of the committee last month to announce that all benefit claim calls would be free by the end of the year after I’d been campaigning on it for many months.

However the evidence we heard on Budget day from the brave people who shared their experiences showed that the cost of calls was only part of the obstacles built into the system.

I say “brave” because it takes courage for someone to come forward, stick their head above the parapet (at the risk of being punished for future claims — a real fear expressed by one witness) and then describe the multiple humiliations they’ve gone through.

I would urge everyone to look up and watch that work and pensions committee session and then contrast that with the lack of response later that day from the Chancellor who failed to put the funding in place to support working people and the vulnerable.

Universal credit has been tweaked only slightly and there will only be a further slowdown on roll-out, not a pause for serious reflection.

Glasgow will be the last full universal credit area, not least because some in the DWP staff, if not the government, know what an unholy mess of misery it will inflict on one of the most deprived areas in the Britain.

They will be lucky if they can find any staff to administer it by then, given the attrition rate in staff in DWP administering universal credit where one in 10 staff are leaving in the early stages of roll-out. Closing seven job centres in Glasgow is another guarantee of stress and chaos in the city.

Given the scale of the challenges ahead, you would imagine recognising the hard work of public-sector workers through a modest pay increase would make sense, especially given the boost this provides to local economies.

However the Chancellor chose to fudge the issue by refusing to put any actual funding on the table, only mentioning writing to ask the public review bodies (PRBs) to start the 2018-19 process.

Fifty-five per cent of public-sector workers aren’t covered by PRBs and certainly no Civil Service workers below the senior grades are.

These are the very workers who collect the taxes, try to make the benefits system work, try to make the asylum and immigration system work — the front-line workers the government has a duty of care as an employer to. And that’s even before we get to the emergency services, the NHS, and local government workers who now see private-sector pay overtaking them.

In the world of social media and fake news, I’ve noticed a real trend of politicians just loudly repeating a mantra of half-truths, the Orwellian big lie in action. It’s as if a soundbite must become true when shouted and tweeted loud and often enough.

So in the Tory world view the deficit was run up by previous government spending and must be reduced even if it’s on the backs of the working poor and vulnerable.

I recently rewatched the film the Big Short as a timely reminder of the insane casino capitalism of the US sub-prime debt and junk bond crisis of 2007 that caused the global crash. Bank bailouts ate up government reserves not public spending.

This government has gone even further with a loud insistence that its truth is the only truth, but in their desperation to promote the Scottish Tories they have over-reached themselves.

The recognition in the Budget that lifting the VAT liability on the Scottish Police Authority is the right thing to do is as welcome as it is overdue. But it was presented in a clunky opportunistic manner.

The sub-text of Hammond telling the Scottish people that “vote Scottish Conservative” and we’ll reward/punish you depending on what’s up for negotiation is as crude as it is inept. As if the past 50 years hasn’t taught us that already.

What’s fascinating is the brutal treatment meted out to David Mundell. Are the Tories admitting that he has to be the worst secretary of state for Scotland ever — as either he lobbied for VAT relief and was ignored until the shiny new boys and girls of the 2017 intake arrived and voila, Scottish Tories are being heard by their lords and masters in Westminster or — and this would be more damning — Mundell never raised it. Maybe he did and is just taking one for the team.

Actually it’s worse than that. Close examination of the Budget papers reveals the following measure at paragraph 3.63: “Legislation will be amended to ensure UK combined authorities and certain fire services in England and Wales will be eligible for VAT refunds.”

Translation: the new combined authorities in England are made up of local government and regional development companies — local government to the max in areas such as Greater Manchester.

However, because local authorities have always been able to recover VAT through carrying out their statutory obligations under what is now Section 33 of the VAT Act 1994 , there’s a statutory anomaly that had to be addressed for these new entities in England.

Someone in Whitehall spotted the anomaly, or English local government lobbying was listened to, and maybe a political calculation was made to roll up the Scottish Police VAT issue at the same time and present it as a Scottish Tory victory ? Defining the definition and timing of refund will be front and centre of the SNP Treasury team on this issue.

Finally, instead of lame jokes about Top Gear presenters, the Chancellor could and should have addressed the real issues the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign has raised, and the fact that pensioner poverty still exists.

And rather than promote an either/or choice about which generation to support, all vulnerable and struggling people, regardless of age, deserve much better than the Budget this zombie Tory government has put on the table.

Chris Stephens is SNP MP for Glasgow South West.