The day Dr Sunak gave UK a shot in the arm

AT the Commons despatch box yesterday, a new star entered the Tory firmament.

Belying the fact that he was propelled into the job of Chancellor just a month ago, Rishi Sunak delivered his crisis Budget with all the panache, wit and passion of a seasoned performer.

If the new boy had nerves, they certainly didn’t show. It was a bravura performance to match the seriousness of the moment.

For while there was plenty in it to show Mr Sunak’s determination to ‘boosterise’ Britain, this will be remembered as the Coronavirus Budget.

Anyone who feared the Government was underestimating the virus threat was quickly disabused. With a dynamic £30billion package of emergency measures, Mr Sunak showed he had no reservations about throwing money at the problem.

Business rates scrapped for small firms and high street shops, cafes, museums and cinemas in England. It is now incumbent on the Scottish Government to follow suit.

A plethora of cheap loans and extended credit. A blank cheque for the NHS. Sick pay refunds, benefits delivered more quickly, cash grants, National Insurance cuts for all, a £500million hardship fund to help the vulnerable.

And on top of all that, the Bank of England cut its interest rate to a minuscule 0.25 per cent, signalling cheaper borrowing costs for both businesses and families.

Short of coming up with a vaccine, it’s hard to see what more Mr Sunak could have done. But this was a Budget of two very distinct halves. After presenting a shortterm cure for the virus, he laid out his prescription for Britain’s long-term prosperity.

More than £600billion on infrastructure over five years, fuel and alcohol duty frozen, £2.5billion for potholes.

Money for homelessness, rates reductions for pubs, funding for hi-tech research and development, broadband and for removing Grenfell-style cladding from tower blocks.

There was extra funding for the North, thousands of civil servants moving out of London and extra billions for regional transport.

The green lobby, too, was thrown a bone. Mr Sunak announced huge tree-planting and peat bog restoration programmes, a welcome levy on unrecyclable plastic and tax hikes on some polluting fuels.

Above all, this was a Budget which emphatically signalled the end of austerity. However, it comes at a price.

The Office for Budget Responsibility, while generally positive, points out that most of this public spending splurge will have to be funded by borrowing.

It’s true that interest rates are at a historic low, so borrowing has never been easier or cheaper. Yet that doesn’t alter the fact that by 2025 our national debt is expected to top £2trillion for the first time.

This paper has always believed we must pay our own way in the world. Slashing the deficit and getting a grip on the overall debt mountain has arguably been the greatest economic achievement of the last decade. It must not be casually thrown away. But Boris Johnson promised an investment and infrastructure revolution to unleash Britain’s potential, ‘level up’ the regions and launch our country into the post-Brexit world. This Budget, presented with brio by his young disciple, is his vision for a freer, more prosperous One Nation future.

So yes, he will have to ensure that spending doesn’t spiral out of control. Waste must be ruthlessly rooted out and borrowing kept within reasonable levels.

But just four months ago, the British people gave Boris a powerful mandate for radical change. This is the blueprint for that change. He is keeping his word.