The chancellor’s review included more opportunities for Tory cronies and an early bid for No 10. But not what really matters
The final fiscal event of 2020 saw the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, extinguish the last vestiges of what remained of George Osborne and the 2010 coalition government’s political project. The government would borrow and spend at an unprecedented rate while slashing foreign aid – the legal commitment to which had been one of the few progressive accomplishments in the past decade.
The economic situation remains bleak: the chancellor noted that while Britain is in the middle of a health emergency, the country is only at the beginning of the economic emergency. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) now forecasts that the economy will have contracted by more than 11% this year, the largest drop in 300 years. Output is not expected to recover to its 2019 levels until the fourth quarter of 2022. Unemployment will surge with 2.6 million people expected to be out of work by the middle of next year. The pandemic will leave permanent scars.
