There was a lot resting on Rishi Sunak’s Spring Statement. The government’s ratings are in a poor state. Labour leads the Conservatives in the polls and the Tories’ lead on the key metric of the economy is narrowing.
The Chancellor’s ratings are also in something just short of free-fall and public attention is increasingly focused on the cost-of-living crisis. What Sunak needed to do yesterday (23 March) was to take the initiative and claim the narrative with a programme that allayed public anxieties.
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