What Rishi Sunak could learn from George Osborne

I was walking last week from Canary Wharf tube station to my flat in east London – not far, little more than a mile, and the walk follows the Thames on the north side, away from traffic: lovely. But as I headed for the river, I saw trouble. A thick curtain of rain had descended over Blackheath across the Thames, and the wind was blowing strongly from that direction. The storm had not yet reached Greenwich, still clear, but the curtain was moving. After Greenwich the rainstorm would cross the river – and hit me. Umbrella-less, I quickened my pace.

Few others seemed to have noticed. People were ambling around, some sitting at outside tables at restaurants, some chatting on park benches. Others in smart business clothes were leaving their offices and heading off outdoors without a care. Soon they’d have to scarper, or get very wet.

I got very wet. Forewarning is no umbrella, but I’m glad I saw it coming. It gave me, if not control, the feeling at least of intelligent participation in my fate. When trouble is coming, I’d always prefer to know.

As it happens, this was also a week in which, for all with eyes to see, the lights on the national dashboard were flashing the clearest of warnings of a coming storm. Inflation reached 7 per cent and is rising. The big hike in National Insurance contributions to pay for health and social care was on the verge of hitting its unavoidably millions of victims. Many more were about to discover they had moved into a higher tax bracket because thresholds have not been raised. Energy price caps are being lifted; and for the rest of this year (and for how much longer nobody knows) almost everything is going to get more expensive while taxes are being raised and incomes squeezed.