Can Rishi Pull Off Mission Impossible For All Our Sakes?

‘The measure of any politician is how they square a circle’

- Stephen Pollard

It goes against the grain to feel sorry for any politician, but who would be Rishi Sunak? On February 13, 2020 he was – to most people’s shock – appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. His first Budget came less than a month later, allocating just £12billion to dealing with something called Covid that few had really heard of, let alone understood.

Less than a week later, the pandemic moved from a theoretical threat to a real disaster. Mr Sunak announced a jawdropping £330billion in support for businesses and the new furlough scheme. Whatever he went into politics to do, it’s unlikely that as a self-proclaimed tax-cutting free marketer he envisaged becoming the Chancellor who, however compelling the reason, outspent even Labour’s 2019 manifesto.

It’s pretty clear that he was right to step in and marshal such huge sums on behalf of the state to protect the economy. By ripping up everything that had been planned, he made exactly the right call.

But one of the few things we know for certain in economics is that there is no such thing as a free lunch. In other words, someone always ends up paying. And that someone is us.