When historians come to assess the premiership of Rishi Sunak and evaluate his strengths and weaknesses, they could do worse than look carefully at the spring Budget of 2023. The Budget was, of course, delivered by Jeremy Hunt. Treasury officials say it was Hunt who pressed to include many of the announcements while Sunak was inclined to be more cautious (a reversal of the usual prime minister/chancellor dynamic) but the approach still bore the stamp of the First Lord of the Treasury.
There was the avoidance of great risks. This should not be an unusual attribute but after September’s mini-Budget we should at least be grateful for that. Plenty of Conservative MPs were calling for big tax cuts to be announced now, oblivious to what this would do to the credibility of the public finances or the consequences for inflation. As demonstrated with his approach to the negotiations over the Northern Ireland Protocol, Sunak is not stupidly irresponsible.
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