The Chancellor’s horrible task ahead

Whether Rishi Sunak is prime minister or still chancellor this spring, fate is handing him a poisoned chalice. Looking back, I cannot remember a time when the British people were readier to believe that responsibility for their welfare lies in the hands of the state. Looking ahead, I see a time fast approaching when the state will appear unusually powerless to help us. The gap between what people have come to expect and what government can deliver has never been wider. And at least in part, it’s a virus that’s to blame.

The pandemic from which we’re emerging has elevated the role and power of the state, reliance upon the state, the moral justification for state intervention, and trust in the state, to levels unprecedented since the second world war. It will be Rishi Sunak’s misfortune to have to tell the voters that a government that could order them to stay indoors, pay them to stay indoors, and even tell them what they could and couldn’t do indoors, cannot now help them (for example) with their soaring gas bills.