U-turn on energy profits flags up Sunak’s lack of long-term plan
“He’s out-Laboured Labour” was the verdict of one upbeat Tory aide after Rishi Sunak announced £15bn worth of handouts to UK households in what was, to all intents and purposes, an emergency budget.
The scale of the package was larger than many in Westminster had expected. But when Sunak decides to do a U-turn, he tends to go big.
The “temporary targeted energy profits levy” – don’t say windfall tax – raises significantly more than Labour’s would have. And the cost of living payments were more targeted, and much more generous, than the measures in the spring statement.
As Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, put it: Sunak’s overall approach – taking this announcement along with other recent outings – is “hugely redistributive, taking from high earners and giving to the poor”.
After the punishment beating Boris Johnson’s Tories have taken over Partygate, the announcement will have done him no harm with backbenchers fed up with having no answer to constituents struggling to heat their homes or feed their kids.
Backbench MPs from across the party had been putting pressure on the Treasury to act and in the absence of a clear steer, floating their own widely differing plans for tackling the crisis.
Johnson was widely ridiculed earlier this month when he responded to a heartbreaking story from a Good Morning Britain viewer, Elsie, about riding around on buses to save on energy bills by boasting about the Freedom Pass.
Next time he is asked, Sunak’s package will give the prime minister something concrete to say.
After many months of being the leading contender to succeed Johnson, Sunak’s ham-fisted spring statement, combined with negative stories about his personal tax affairs and those of his super-rich
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