The House welcomed the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, as he announced his spending commitments for the coming year. Rish the Dish delivered all kinds of goals and priorities for the UK but he left his personal plans in obscurity. Or did he? The Chancellor’s naked ambition may be sheathed in a Jermyn Street suit but his strategy is easy to read: knife the Honey Monster and evict him from his lair.
Today he was addressing himself to his colleagues in cabinet, and in the wider party, and he wanted to show political intelligence and presentational shrewdness. His critics have already accused him of betraying the NHS by freezing pay settlements for the next 12 months, and he dodged that bullet by guaranteeing to boost the earnings of a million health workers. He also promised to support the lowest paid across the board by hiking the minimum wage. Neat footwork. Every Tory now has a decent reply when attacked for starving NHS employees of money.
That list of pious abstract nouns had a familiar ring — so did his habit of using verbless sentences
Foreign aid was his thorniest problem.
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