Tomorrow, as Chancellor Jeremy Hunt delivers his first Budget speech, he will be faced across the Despatch Box by Sir Keir Starmer and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves. Yet his true opponents will be the ghosts of Conservatism’s recent past: Boris Johnson and the ethical crash that ended his shambolic premiership; Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, whose disastrous economic strategy was as damaging to the credibility of UK plc as it was mercifully short-lived.
In word and deed, the Chancellor will seek — as he did in the Autumn Statement on November 17 – to reassure the markets and voters that the derangement of 2022 is well and truly over, and that he and Rishi Sunak are rigorously committed to a strategy of calm competence.
Within this framework of fiscal conservatism, there will be measures to suggest the direction of travel the Government intends to take once stability is properly restored.
The PM has already announced £5 billion extra spending on defence. Tomorrow, Hunt will unveil plans for assistance with childcare, pension tax breaks, changes to universal credit that will make it easier for claimants to work, and perhaps some limited concessions to striking public-sector workers. It is, to say the least, politically awkward that his Budget coincides with industrial action by junior doctors, Tube workers and civil servants.
One employment dispute that seems to have been resolved is the battle between the BBC and Gary Lineker over his social media activity. When the Match of the Day host tweeted that he found Suella Braverman’s harsh new proposals to crack down on “small boats” and illegal immigration “an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s”, he spoke not only for liberal opinion and (in my view) for common decency but for those who are baffled by the two faces of the Sunak government: on one hand, steady-as-she-goes economic caution and calm technocracy; on the other, fiery demagoguery and populism in its approach to the wretched struggling to cross the Channel.
In the Commons yesterday, as her bill reached its second reading, the Home Secretary declared testily that she would “not be hectored by out-of-touch lefties, or anyone for that matter”. The trouble for Braverman is that the opponents of the legislation include such Left-wing firebrands as Theresa May (who delivered a withering attack on the bill in yesterday’s debate).
The apparent conflict between the two Sunaks was best characterised by the former Home Office adviser and Evening Standard columnist Nimco Ali, who said the proposals “make us look cruel and heartless, which I don’t think the PM is”.
Yet the tension is more apparent than real. Certainly, the PM — unlike Braverman — is not an instinctive culture warrior. But he is addicted to winning, which he has been doing since childhood. And, like every addict, he knows where to get what he needs.
The calculation is clear enough. As committed as Sunak is to the long haul of fiscal conservatism, he also knows that it may not deliver sufficient electoral gratitude before he goes to the country in search of a fifth Tory term. There is always a lag between statistical economic recovery and the public’s perception.
Hence, what I have heard Downing Street sources call “Track B”: the Government’s battle against “wokery”, its skirmishes with the BBC, and above all its performative toughness on immigration. While Hunt labours at the economic coal face, Braverman is deployed to persuade the Red Wall voters that Johnson won over in 2019 to stick with the Tories next time. As the battle to tame inflation continues, Sunak stands behind a lectern inscribed with the shamelessly populist slogan “Stop the Boats”.
Lead on the economy, but go after illegal immigrants — just in case. Point to the sunlit uplands of renewed prosperity but denounce those who supposedly enable what Braverman calls the immigrant “invasion”.
As we shall see tomorrow during Hunt’s Budget speech, the PM’s primary objective is to nurture economic optimism; but he is more than willing to whip up nativist resentment, too.
There is no contradiction between the two Sunaks. In truth, they are one and the same.
