Beneath Sober Suit Is A Savvy Gambler Backing Britain

‘Somehow Sunak managed to present himself as both the Iron Chancellor and the Big Spender’

- Leo McKinstry Daily Express columnist

IT WAS an extraordinary budget for extraordinary times. No Conservative chancellor has ever delivered a financial statement like Rishi Sunak’s yesterday, packed with lavish spending commitments and colossal funding pledges.

But then no Conservative chancellor in the modern age has had to face the unique circumstances that confronted Sunak as the country emerges from the unprecedented shock of the pandemic.

The continuing fallout from the Covid crisis demanded a radical response – and we certainly got one this week.

As the Chancellor outlined his bold plan, he pulled off a remarkable trick. When he sat down, he had Tory MPs loudly cheering a budget that could have easily been put forward by a Labour government. Austerity was truly banished, the legacy of George Osborne comprehensively trashed.

Margaret Thatcher famously used to speak of her determination “to roll back the frontiers of the state”. Sunak has just rolled them forward on an epic scale.

In recent elections, the Tories ferociously condemned then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for his supposed belief in “the magic money tree”. Well, the Chancellor seems to have found an entire orchard to support his attachment to governmental expansion. He spent over £400billion on the Covid emergency and now he appears unwilling to abandon such liberality.

In this brave new world, where the Tories have just laid claim to be the party of the public sector, the proposed splurge is phenomenal. With a flourish, Sunak boasted that total departmental spending will go up £150billion over the course of this Parliament.

From schools to councils, every part of the state will receive a substantial cash injection. Investment in the NHS alone will climb by £44billion to £177 billion.