It’s sometimes said that Rishi Sunak has been playing politics on easy mode: when you’re giving away loads of cash, it’s hard not to be popular. Now, as summer fades and autumn beckons, politics gets harder. The chancellor is facing his first real test with Conservative MPs over reports that his Treasury is considering a range of tax rises to help repair, in part, the public finances.
A number of those Conservative MPs have made clear in recent days that they do not want taxes to rise. On one level, this is unsurprising: not many people who get elected to Parliament as Conservatives are keen on higher taxes.
Yet what is surprising is the lack of significant Tory engagement with the wider fiscal context of this debate. By which I mean unprecedented government borrowing and a national debt big enough to be visible from space.
The national debt is now as big as the entire UK economy.
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