Michael DEACON
Traditionally, Chancellors of the Exchequer are cold, grim, forbidding. When they rise to speak, the temperature plummets. Faces turn pale. Harsh winds whistle through the chamber.
Rishi Sunak is different. He doesn’t just seem unusually young but unusually gentle and genial. Even when he’s talking about the most terrifying economic forecasts since the time of the dinosaurs, he somehow manages to sound soothing, reassuring, encouraging. He’s like a sparky junior doctor at the economy’s bedside: “There, there, gross domestic product. It’s all going to be fine. Another few quarters and you’ll be right as rain.”
Yesterday, he was in the Commons to present his Summer Economic Update, or, as everyone else seemed to be calling it, his “mini-budget”, although really there was nothing mini about it. The sums involved were huge. Since the crisis began, the Chancellor had been paying businesses to keep staff on. Now, we learned, he was going to pay them to bring those staff back, to take young people on, and to create apprenticeships.
Not only that. Since restaurants were among the businesses most likely to struggle, he was going to pay the public to eat in them.
“For the month of August, we will give everyone in the country an ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ discount,” he cried. “Meals eaten at any participating business, Monday to Wednesday, will be 50 per cent off, up to a maximum discount of £10 per head for everyone, including children!”
He said this with terrific zeal, as if he were standing outside a restaurant in person, thrusting vouchers into the hands of passers-by, and urging them to come on in. It was possibly his most eye-catching announcement, and certainly caused a ripple of approval among MPS. Few know better than they do the appeal of a subsidised dinner.
Responding for Labour was Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor. This was a tough gig. Normally Labour gets to denounce Tory chancellors as callous skinflints. Suddenly, here was a Tory chancellor bunging billions to businesses to employ the young and offering to take the entire country out to Nando’s.
Still, she had a go, accusing Mr Sunak of putting off “many of the big decisions till later”.
Stung, Mr Sunak fought back – and, just for a moment, he didn’t sound genial and reassuring. Instead, he went all squeaky and squawky and adenoidal, like Will from The Inbetweeners having a meltdown about his A-levels. Perhaps gladiatorial politics isn’t quite Mr Sunak’s style. Still, he soon returned to his usual soothing self.
On the whole, the announcements he made yesterday will probably be very popular, and cause his approval ratings to soar higher still. It was hard to avoid the feeling, though, that sooner rather than later he’ll have no choice but to adopt the approach of a more traditional chancellor. Become cold, grim and forbidding. Stop being so generous.
At that point, he might find the public stops being so generous to him.