Rishi Sunak, the UK chancellor of the exchequer for less than a month, did exactly what he was appointed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to do. He delivered on commitments to raise government spending, especially on investment, and “level up” the country’s more economically backward regions. He also produced a sensible response to coronavirus.
The fact that this rising Conservative star is a brilliant son of immigrants from India displays the party’s traditional embrace of fresh talent. This flexibility shows even more in the Budget’s repudiation of what the party stood for under David Cameron and George Osborne. Gone are austerity and small government: this is now a party of high spending and big government. Its programme is “welfare nationalism”.
Rightly, the chancellor started with Covid-19. He noted the close co-ordination with the Bank of England’s welcome measures. But there are some things a government alone can do. The state is protector and insurer of last resort. A pandemic is precisely the sort of thing it exists to deal with. Mr Sunak promised the National Health Service “whatever extra resources” it needs. Thank heavens the UK, like other civilised countries, recognises that health is a public good of the highest importance. We should never want people to refuse to go to the doctor or a hospital because of lack of money, especially during an epidemic of a highly infectious disease.