Would the real Rishi Sunak please stand up?

It was a tale of two chancellors at today’s high-spending Budget. Rishi Sunak began by embracing the big-state profligacy pursued by Cameron and May, and maintained by their successors, Boris and Carrie. 

The Chancellor reeled off stacks of figures indicating that the economy is roaring back to life. ‘Growth up! Wages up! Employment up!’ he shouted. And he announced that government spending sprees will also surge by £150 billion. He plans to restore the 0.7 per cent spending target for foreign aid by the end of this parliament. And he has ordered civil servants across Whitehall to find more stuff to buy. 

‘A real-terms rise in spending for every single department,’ he boasted. The purpose of this fiscal madness is to flatter his vanity and to prove that ‘the Conservatives are the real party of public services’. He described our bloated state sector as ‘world-class’. But a moment later, he revealed that Britain’s school system is stuck in the Dark Ages.