Sunak learns hard way UK public don’t want an Osborne reboot
Where did it all go wrong for Rishi Sunak? The most popular chancellor in four decades now pilloried for a spring statement which failed to meet the challenge of the worst hit to living standards since the Suez crisis.
Attacked for promising tax cuts while stealthily driving up the tax burden to the highest level since Clement Attlee was prime minister in the late 1940s. Criticised for putting Instagram moments ahead of the serious task at hand, here was an out-of-touch ivory tower politician who would allow living costs to rise faster than pensions and benefits. It was the mini-budget to please no one.
In an earlier time the story would have been very different. Conservative chancellors promising tax cuts would normally enjoy support from their own party. Prioritising the public finances over benefit handouts should be a surefire winner for any would-be Tory leadership contender.
In the arid desert of support for Sunak, it was noticeable that George Osborne was among the few politicians willing to offer him praise, gushing that the Conservatives had been given back a “long-term economic plan” based on controlling spending, reducing the deficit and cutting taxes.
The trouble is the times have changed. Now is not the moment for an Osborne reboot of “fixing the roof while the sun is shining”. In case the chancellor hadn’t noticed, the economic weather has turned – with more than a million people expected to be pushed into absolute poverty.
A decade of austerity cuts to public services has swung public opinion behind more state intervention, not less, with the response to Covid highlighting how much can be done during extreme shocks to the economy.
That Sunak’s spring statement fell so badly flat highlights three things: how much
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