It’s often said that Westminster exists in a bubble, deaf to life outside the M25. But if that was ever true, SW1 now looks positively on the money compared to the massed ranks of Conservative party members. The Bank of England’s doomsday forecast on Thursday – inflation rising to 13%, a long grim recession, rising interest rates and plummeting living standards – only confirmed what everyone involved in politics had been afraid was coming for months. But what were Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak asked as they roamed the country? Whether they’ll bring back grammar schools. How they’ll fight a “war on woke”. Whether Boris Johnson was shabbily treated. Meanwhile, neither candidate has demonstrated the sense of urgency you’d expect from someone applying to lead Britain through a full-blown national emergency. The gravity of the moment has somehow passed the whole contest by.
Sunak has come closest to acknowledging reality by arguing that cutting taxes now – the answer the Tory faithful always reach for, whatever the question – is unaffordable. Truss has sunnily told them what they want to hear, even suggesting at Thursday night’s Sky News hustings that this kind of recession isn’t inevitable, whatever the Bank says. As a result Sunak has become the “actually it’s a bit more complicated than that” candidate, struggling to explain without sounding patronising that if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
