Is the chancellor back to square one in her pre-Budget preparations? All is not lost, as Sean O’Grady explains N o doubt to her relief, the cost of the chancellor ’s substantial borrowings on behalf of the British people has subsided following a spike in gilt yields on Friday. In what must be the most chaotic Budget preparation in history, the government has somehow contrived to end up in a worse position than if it had just delivered all the bad news a fortnight ago. The financial markets are