I’ve covered countless Tory mini-budgets. The cruelty of this one shocked even me

theguardian.com:

This was a great “levelling down”, with two-thirds of Rishi Sunak’s giveaways in his spring statement going to the top half of earners. At least the chancellor had the good grace to abandon the words “levelling up” and “net zero”, and he barely even mentioned “pensioners” as he impoverished the already poor while giving a little bonus to gas-guzzling SUV drivers.

Why be shocked? God knows how many Tory budgets and mini-budgets I have covered in a lifetime mostly ruled by Tory governments, yet still, somehow, I can be taken by surprise. The sheer naked venality still takes my breath away. Surely a chancellor wouldn’t choose to do the wrong things, knowingly, when he has the power to set the country in a better direction?

How pathetically naive to think that Sunak would choose to ensure the blow didn’t again fall hardest on the weakest, as we face the worst hit to our living standards in our lifetimes after the triple blows of financial crash, pandemic and war. I did expect at least a token gesture. After all the years of George Osborne budgets, the effects of which I chronicled with David Walker in our book, The Lost Decade, what idiocy on my part to hold on to a scintilla of belief that the Tories wouldn’t keep doing the same thing over and over again.

“We can’t do everything” is the chancellor’s mantra, to go alongside blaming Putin for all the cumulative damage done since 2010. It sounds grownup and responsible, and it’s how Tory chancellors have deceived the public ever since Margaret Thatcher compared the national economy to a household budgetand Osborne cleverly said the country has “maxed out its credit card”. Of course a chancellor can’t do everything! Let’s leave aside the macro-economic questions of how he could,