Chancellor Rishi Sunak
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)IT is possible to see Rishi Sunak as some sort of Shakespearian character, trapped in circumstances not of his own making, constantly forced into actions that are against his own instincts.
Moreover, defying his own will keeps turning out to have been the right thing to do. He must be in turmoil.
Going back to the start of the Covid crisis, our Chancellor quickly grasped that there was no solution other than to invent money and spend it.
The furlough scheme in particular may go down as the most successful government intervention ever.
The expectation was that it would keep people afloat for a while, before there was a spectacular economic crash and mass unemployment later. Neither happened. It worked better than Sunak hoped – we got through.
Now he faces an energy and cost of living crisis that he will address in his Spring statement tomorrow.
He might introduce a temporary fuel VAT cut, he might delay a planned increase in National Insurance, he might boost benefit payments. He can afford to do any and all of them.
The thing is, he doesn’t want to. He still thinks, despite everything, that government spending is like a household budget and that every pound he spends he somehow has to pay back later (he doesn’t really).
And it is awkward for him that government finances are in dramatically better shape than almost anyone expected, precisely because government support allowed the economy, and therefore tax receipts, to recover. So if the plan really is to balance the books, he is getting there faster by ignoring his own politics.
Maybe this is Sunak’s tragedy. He might turn out to be one of our best ever chancellor’s, all for reasons he doesn’t like.
