If partygate doesn’t kill the Tories, Rishi Sunak’s spending cuts might
As the Conservative party plots a way out of “partygate”, with or without its current leader, the path towards re-election in 2023 or 2024 is looking hazardous.
In December 2019, flush with an 80-seat majority and a public spending deficit of just 2.6%, the outlook was rosy for a cabinet dominated by Brexiters keen to reward their supporters with one spending initiative after another.
Spraying money around was not a problem while the deficit was low and the extra borrowed funds were clearly earmarked for investment. Criticism from small-state Tories, mindful of the demand from constituents for tax cuts, would be smothered by the joyful urge to spend after a decade of austerity. And there was the added bonus of political cover offered by a Labour party that had argued over several years for higher spending on infrastructure, support for small businesses and skills training.
Billions and billions of pounds were going to be spent pump-priming a stagnant economy that had suffered badly since the 2016 Brexit vote, not that Brexit was ever going to be blamed. According to the rhetoric, boom-boom Britain was just a few steps away, with its attendant fruit of high-skilled, high-wage jobs for all.
That was then. The outlook these days is far from rosy, especially now that the pandemic has soaked up so much of the magic money tree’s imagined largesse.
Underlying the arguments over April’s national insurance rise and the extent to which it will add to the rising cost of living is a more fundamental battle between low-tax Conservatives who believe in public spending restraint and those who still carry a flame for Johnson’s more extravagant plans.
With his job-protecting furlough scheme declared a resounding success, Rishi Sunak considers
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